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1 



The Christ 
OF Nineteen Centuries 



BY THE LATE $ - 

Rev. a. J. F. Behrends, D.D. 

FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS PASTOR OF THE CENTRAL CONGREGATIONAL 
CHURCH, BROOKLYN, N. Y. 



Selections from Discourses and Sermons 

compiled by 

WILLIAM HERRIES 



T. B. VENTRES: 

597 I'uLTON Street. Brooklyn, N. Y. 

1904 






^. 



n 



LIBRARY 0* OONQRESS 
Two GoDies Received 

JUN 15 1904 
^^^Copyrf£ht Entry ^ ^ 

CLASS d XXo. Na 

y COPY B 



Copyright 1904, by 
WILLIAM HERRIES 









I»9v 



^ 



^ 



Rev. a. J. F. Behrends, D. D. 




A FOREWORD. 



THESE discourses and homiletical ex- 
tracts from the pen of my honored pred- 
ecessor, the late Rev. A. J. F. Behrends, D.D., 
have been compiled and arranged by his 
friend and parishioner, Mr. William Herries. 
They represent in the main the thought 
and utterance of a distinguished scholar, 
theologian and preacher, who, at the time 
of his decease, had long been a foremost 
light of the American pulpit. Yet, the out- 
ward reputation of the former pastor of the 
Central Congregational Church was the lesser 
part of his very able and illuminating minis- 
try. Its inward worth, its depth and width of 
consecrated knowledge ; its moral eminence, 
and its spiritual insight constituted Dr. Beh- 
rends a favorite teacher for teachers, a preacher 
whose constructive efforts presented afresh 
the dignity and weight of the sacred message. 
It may have been said of him, '* His delight 
was in the law of Jehovah : and in His law 
doth he meditate day and night." He also knew 
the secret of human life in its innermost re- 



cesses, its reciprocal influences, its sunlight 
and its pain. 

He brought his gifts and energies to the 
office of the Christian pastorate ; he received 
the manifest approval of his Redeemer ; and 
the churches in centers such as Yonkers, 
Cleveland, Providence and Brooklyn bore tes- 
timony to his unfailing energy for the King- 
dom of God. 

I commend this volume to my brethren in 
the ministry, and to all devout lovers of the 
truth as this is revealed in Jesus Christ. In 
an age sometimes marked by immaturity and 
mental slackness, Dr. Behrends wrought in 
detachment from minor considerations, with 
a mind natively large and unusually rich and 
fertile. He was thorough in all his researches 
and they bore the marks of painstaking effort. 

His record is deserving of this permanent 
memorial of some of its outstanding charac- 
teristics, and as devout souls ponder these 
pages they will realize afresh how great was 
Dr. Behrends' intelligent zeal in the procla- 
mation of the Gospel. 



S. Parkes Cadman. 



Central Church, 1904. 



PREFATORY. 



SHORTLY after Dr. Behrends' death, a few 
months ago, a member of the Central Congre- 
gational Church, Brooklyn, who possessed ex- 
ceptional qualifications, undertook, in a spirit of affec- 
tionate regard, to compile this volume of excerpts from 
his pastor's Sermons and Addresses. Their author 
was a power in advancing the influence of the Gospel, 
and a positive force in the defense of approved and 
well tested positions. May the influence exerted by 
this volume be a continuance of the work so suddenly 
cut short! Dr. Behrends' work and words as printed 
here are from his own pen, including the address de- 
livered in Carnegie Hall during the Ecumenical Con- 
ference in which "he uncovered and ripped down 
clear through all the miserable sophistries by which 
we disguise the evils of our infamous divisions," which 
is according to the author's manuscript. 

This book will be a source of deep satisfaction to 
those who knew and listened to the eloquent preacher 
of truth and righteousness, — whose sincerity was un- 
questioned, and whose character was reflected in his 
preaching, — as it is to one who treasures the memory 
of having been associated with him in the work of 
the Gospel. 

WiLLARD P. Harmon, 

Brooklyn, N. Y., March 15, 1901. 

5 



INTRODUCTORY. 



IT has been deemed due to the memory of the Rev. 
A. J. F. Behrends, D.D., and to the desire of 
many to whom he was friend and pastor, that 
some of his work should be put in form for permanent 
usefulness. In compliance with this wish, a collection 
of excerpts from his discourses on different themes, 
during his pastorate of the Central Congregational 
Church in Brooklyn, has been made. So, in present- 
ing this book to the public, little need be said except 
that the author speaks for himself, as no attempt has 
been made to change, in any way, a single sentence 
as it fell from his lips. Thus, although the preacher 
has departed, he still speaks, and that in such a way 
as to endear his deliverances to all readers. 

The careful perusal of the book must unquestionably 
promote respect for the Christian religion. It will 
serve to perpetuate the memory of him who speaks, 
in the hearts of earnest Bible students; while it will 
furnish families and individuals with a body of relig- 
ious literature the perusal of which must exert an 
exalting, healthful, spiritual power. The absence of 
any classification of subjects in the arrangement of 
the excerpts and complete discourses, which for the 
most part constitute the book, is accounted for by the 
desire of the compiler to represent the pulpit ministry 
of the Rev. Dr. Behrends in the order of its exercise 



INTRODUCTORY 

for about fifteen years. In making the selections the 
aim has been to enable the more studious reader to 
comprehend the manner, method and style of the great 
preacher, while also preserving the freshness and the 
frankness of expression which must make for mental 
and spiritual profit to the general reader. It is a 
book designed to be in its proper place, whether in the 
college or in the home, in the study of the preacher 
or in the seminary. It contains a body of instruction 
that is the essence of the clearest, most manly and 
most scholarly thought. In one of his sermons. Dr. 
Behrends maintained that the ''philosophy of God's 
discipline was compacted in the life of Jesus Christ," 
and so, that philosophy, as illustrated in what is pre- 
served in the pages of this volume, is a fine manifes- 
tation of the loving and noble spirit of one who was 
declared by his contemporaries to be ''the greatest 
preacher in America." Readers will gladly and grate- 
fully acknowledge that his light still shines. 

Preliminary to the main body of the book, instead 
of a biographical sketch of the author for which 
readers are apt to look eagerly, the compiler has pre- 
ferred to furnish a series of statements which amply 
cover the ground of Dr. Behrends' life and work. 

First of all is Dr. Behrends' own account of himself, 
as a student for the work of preaching; next in order 
is the Tribute by the Rev. C. C. Creegan, D.D. ; Dr. 
Behrends' Religious Career, by the Rev. Frank B. 
Cressey ; The Great Preacher, a tribute in Christian 
Work, and last, The Scope of Dr. Behrends' Ministry, 
as set forth in the columns of the Brooklyn Eagle at 
the time of his death. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Foreword by the Rev. S. Parkes Cadman, D. D 3 

Prefatory Note by the Rev. Willard P. Harmon 5 

Introductory 7 

PART I. 
Dr. Behrends' Own Account of Himself as a Student 

for THE Work of Preaching .13 

The Books that Helped Him Most 15 

Tribute, by the Rev. C. C. Creegan, D.D 18 

Dr. Behrends' Religious Career, by the Rev. Frank 

B. Cressey , . . . 20 

The Great Preacher 25 

The Scope of Dr. Behrends' Ministry 28 

Dr. Behrends in Cleveland 33 

PART n. 

The Temple and the Cross 35 

The Edict of Cyrus 36 

Overthrow of Babylon 37 

Birth of the Synagogue 38 

An Axiom to Remember 40 

Grace to Live, and Grace to Die 40 

Our Own Will 41 

The Story of Esther 41 

Daniel the Prophet of Deeds 43 

Prayer a Dialogue 45 

Daniel's Character 45 

The Book of Job 47 

The Philosophy of Suffering 49 

The Scope of the Psalms 51 

The Psalms Arranged 52 

The Psalms as a Solace 54 

9 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

David and Solomon Compared 55 

The Book of Proverbs 56 

A Priceless Necklace 57 

A Book for the Young 58 

Warning Against Robbery 58 

Scope and Style of Ecclesiastes 59 

Leaving the Pit of Despair 60 

Office of the Heart 62 

Why Am I a Christian ? 64 

Testimony of John 65 

The Mighty Message 66 

An Unfaltering Faith in God 68 

Righteousness Essential to Happiness 69 

God, the Soul, and the Bible 71 

The Principle of Righteousness 73 

Modern Socialism Versus Christianity 75 

Triumph of the Christian Plan 78 

Gnasaphthani ? Gnanithani 80 

Paraphrase of Psalm XVI 82 

Paraphrase of Psalm XIX 84 

Sing to the Heart of Jesus 85 

Lord, I'm Trusting 87 

Introduction to Birdseye Views of the Bible 89 

Missionary Philosophy 91 

How TO Study the Bible 94 

The Name of Jehovah 96 

The Spirit is Willing but the Flesh is Weak 98 

The Nineteenth Psalm 102 

A Call for Church Unity 109 

The National Covenant with the Negro no 

Studying the Bible iii 

The Name of God 113 

The World for Christ 115 

The Law of Work Interpreted 118 

Christ's Life not a Dream 120 

The Doubting Apostle 123 

Christ's Method with Thomas 124 

The Fact of the Resurrection 125 



10 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Vigilance Indispensable to Moral Safety 128 

Christian Unity 131 

Philosophy of Preaching 135 

Law of Christian Progress 136 

The Survival of Christianity 138 

Paraphrase of Romans iii., 21-26 141 

Thanksgiving Observance 143 

Meaning of the Divinely Inspired Bible 146 

Statement and Treatment of Scriptural Differences 149 

The Constraining Love of Christ 152 

The Later Religious Spirit 155 

The Atonement 156 

Unity in Congregationalism 158 

End of Ten Years in the Central Church 159 

Future Punishment 160 

Athanasius and the Incarnation 171 

The Incarnation and Sin 175 

The Only Way of Escape 180 

Revolutionary Demands of Socialism 182 

Sacredness of the Sabbath 187 

Two Forms of Criticism 191 

The Jews as Conservators 194 

Testimony of Learned Jews 199 

Evolution an Unproved Theory 203 

Harnack and Literary Criticism 206 

What Must I Do to Be Saved ? 209 

The Lamp of Life 212 

The Attributes of God , . . . 216 

What is Man? 219 

Who is Jesus Christ ? 224 

Why Did Christ Die ? 229 

What Does the New Birth Mean ? 233 

Judgment of Self 238 

Christ Dwelling in the Heart 243 

Last Ministerial Anniversary 249 

The Spiritual Body 252 

The Incarnate Christ 257 

Wayside Notes on Bible Criticism 269 



II 



CONTENTS 

Christ Triumphant 275 

God's Love First 282 

The Effect on the Churches of Supporting Foreign 
Missions 294 

PART III. 

PAGE 

Half Hours with Jesus 304 

What Jesus had to say about His Authority as a 

Teacher 304 

What Jesus had to say about the Old Testament 310 

What Jesus had to say about the Guidance of the 

Church by Himself 316 

What Jesus had to say about God 321 

What Jesus had to say about the Soul of Man 326 

What Jesus had to say about the Devil 331 

What Jesus had to say about His own Death and 

Resurrection 337 

What Jesus had to say about His Authority as King. 343 
What Jesus had to say about the Kingdom of God . . 350 

What Jesus had to say about Children 358 

What Jesus had to say about Marriage and Divorce. 364 

What Jesus had to say about Nature 371 

What Jesus had to say about God's Care of His 

Creatures 378 

What Jesus had to say about Prayer 384 

What Jesus had to say about Religion 392 

What Jesus had to say about the Sabbath 400 

What Jesus had to say about Heaven 407 



12 




PART I. 



Dr. Behrends own Account of Himself as a 
Student for the Work of Preaching. 

SOME years ago Dr. Behrends favored a repre- 
sentative of the Brooklyn Eagle with a talk 
about himself, principally as to his preparation 
for pulpit work, including his course of reading and 
his method of study ; and now, the story which he then 
told is reproduced; the great preacher, although his 
voice is silenced for ever, speaks for himself. He said : 

When I began my ministry I adopted what I pre- 
sume is almost the universal custom of spending the 
entire week in the preparation of my sermons. One I 
always wrote out in full and endeavored to prepare 
for the second without the use of the pen. I soon dis- 
covered my mistake. The well speedily became empty. 
I found that I must pay more attention to accumula- 
tion and less to expenditure. I began to give the best 
half of my week to general hard study, critical read- 
ing of the Bible, philosophy, ethics, science, history 
and theology. I began to find the hardest studies 
most helpful as giving keenness of edge to thought. 
Two days now suffice for the work of immediate 

13 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

preparation, one day for each sermon. The work is 
done easily and rapidly because of the increasing mo- 
mentum secured by general study during three or 
four days of the week. It was a hard thing to do at 
first, but I persevered, and I have always been glad 
that I began so early. 

For a number of years I continued to read half of 
my sermons and to prepare the other half without use 
of the pen. But my written and speaking styles were 
out of harmony. I found myself living a double men- 
tal life. My preaching lacked uniformity and the 
individuality which grows out of the use of a single 
method. So I abandoned both methods and adopted 
a third, that of preparing a careful brief, mastering 
its contents without special attention to the language, 
and then freely reproducing it in speech, and without 
the use of a note. This has been my habit since, and 
I am sure that, for me, it is the best. 

The written preparation usually amounts to about 
two thousand words, one third of a fully written dis- 
course. The thought is put as compactly as possible, 
and with special regard to clearness and precision. No 
elaboration, either of argument or of imagery, is 
attempted at the time of composition ; this is left to the 
subsequent review, to which an hour or an hour and 
a half is given immediately preceding the service, and 
very much is left to the friction of thought which 
an active and attentive audience always excites. I 
know the disadvantages of such a method. It prevents 
a man from filling up a barrel, upon the contents of 
which he can draw in an exigency. To preach an old 
sermon, prepared in this way, requires nearly as much 

14 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

work as the creation of a new one. Exchanges do not 
bring relief, and supplies lose their attraction. 

I want my vacations for absolute rest, and I get 
it. But I have found the advantages many and great, 
and I am sure that, for me, it is the best. So I mean 
to stick to it, whatever may be the judgment of others ; 
and in this matter every man must be his own homi- 
lectical instructor. I have ceased to read lectures on 
preaching, because you might as well expect to learn 
how to make butter by reading treatises on churns 
as to learn how to preach by reading lectures on the 
subject. 



The Books that Helped Him Most. 

As to the books which had helped him most in his 
work, Dr. Behrends, on a subsequent occasion, spoke 
as follows: 

In Theology I have been greatly indebted to the 
monographs of Dorner, Julius MuUer, Lee and Dove, 
and to the more general treatises by Hodge, Dwight, 
Van Oosterzee, Martensen, Philippi, Luthardt, Hare 
and Jonathan Edwards. In Biblical Interpretation I 
have consulted, with constantly increasing satisfaction, 
the works of Calvin, Meyer, Alford, Elliott, Lightfoot, 
Trench, Delitzsch, Godet, Murphy, Tholuck, Alexan- 
der, Olshausen, and Perowne. Neander, Glesseler, 
Gucricke and Schaff have been my guides in general 
Church history. Milman and Stanley, Samuel Hop- 
kins, Isaac Taylor, Dollinger and Ranken have been 

IS 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

favorites of mine. D'Aubignc's histories I read with 
avidity. Calvin's ''Institutes," and the works of An- 
drew Fuller and of Robert Hall were much thumbed 
by me twenty years ago. I have derived much profit 
from Herzog's ''Real Encyclopaedia/' a perfect the- 
saurus of critical and theological learning. The Britan- 
nica ranks next, in my judgment, its use requiring 
great caution. Motley has always been one of my 
favorite historians. The works of Coleridge early fell 
into my hands, and I have always held them in high 
esteem. 

It was during my seminary course that the sermons 
of F. W. Robertson fell into my hands, and produced 
upon me a profound impression, which still remains. 
Horace Bushnell I regard as one of the suggestive 
and stimulating writers. I have read all his books 
with greediness, though unable to follow him in all 
his conclusions. One of the earliest theological books 
I ever read was Bledsoe's "Theodicy.'' I was only 
fifteen years old, but I read it with the eagerness of 
a starving man, and the questions which it discusses 
have always enlisted my profound interest. 

In Philosophy, Sir William Hamilton has been my 
master, whose influence upon me has been qualified 
by that of Calderwood, Caird, Porter, McCosh and 
Lotze. In Ethics, Butler, Kant and James ^lartineau 
have had most attraction for me. The latter, espe- 
cially, has always been one of my favorite authors. The 
only product of Carlyle's pen that I have ever had 
the patience to read was his "History of Frederick 
the Great," and that stirred me profoundly. I always 
read Goethe with pleasure and profit. 

i6 



^1 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 



I fell upon the 'Tickwick Papers" during my col- 
lege course, and Charles Dickens has always had a 
singular fascination for me. Later, Washington Irv- 
ing had great attractions for me, though for a dozen 
years or more I have rarely opened his volumes. I 
have the liveliest remembrances of the novels by 
George Eliot and Georg Ebers. 

In Poetry, my reading has not had a very wide 
range. It has been confined to Homer, Dante, Milton, 
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Tennyson, Mrs. Browning 
and Longfellow, though most of my friends would 
probably be surprised to learn that I had read even 
these. De Quincy and the elder DTsraeli were often 
in my hands twenty years ago. Rawlinson's "Ancient 
Monarchies'' were more interesting to me than any 
novel, and Lecky's ''History of European Morals" 
stirred me more deeply than any work of fiction could 
have done. 

In the voluminous literature called forth by Strauss' 
and Renan's Lives of Christ, I have derived the great- 
est help from Hanna, Farrar, Young, Andrews, Fisher, 
Pressense, Westcott, and Weiss. Oberlin, Kurtz and 
Oehler have been of great service to me in Old Testa- 
ment theology. Delitzsch I regard as the prince of 
Old Testament commentators, though in some respects 
Calvin is his superior; while, for the New Testament, 
the palm of superior merit belongs to Meyer, with a 
very high place for Alford and Ellicott. I have made 
no mention of Mill and Spencer in Philosophy; of 
Darwin and Huxley and Tyndall in Science ; of 
Buckle and Draper in Philosophical History; of Da- 
vidson and others in Bi))lical Criticism, because their 

17 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

reasoning has not carried conviction to my mind. The 
logic has been vicious in its unsupported assumptions. 
There are other departments, notably that on Political 
Economy, on which I have not touched, simply because 
the list of names would be too widely extended. 



I 



Tribute by the Rev. C. C. Creegan, D.D. 

[August number of the Ainerican Missionary, 1900.] 

Born in Holland in the home of an humble Lutheran 
preacher, he came to this country with his parents 
when five years of age. While teaching school, in 
his seventeenth year, near Portsmouth, Ohio, he was 
converted by the preaching of an obscure Methodist 
minister, and at once decided to fit himself for the 
work of the ministry. Largely by his own efforts he 
worked his way through Denison University, Ohio, 
graduating in 1862 in a class of three, all of whom be- 
came prominent clergymen. Three years later he 
completed his theological studies at Rochester Theo- 
logical Seminary at the head of his class, and was 
called at once to the pastorate of a large Baptist 
Church in Yonkers, N. Y., where he remained eight 
years. He was then called to the First Baptist Church 
of Cleveland, Ohio, where he won great distinction as 
a platform orator. 

It was during this pastorate, which lasted three years, 
that Dr. Behrends, after a great struggle, decided to 
resign from this strong church, where he was very 

18 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

popular, and enter another denomination. Six happy 
years were then spent in the Union Church of Provi- 
dence, R. I., where he was recognized as one of the 
foremost preachers in the State and nation. Dr. Beh- 
rends was a great scholar. It is the beHef of those who 
knew him well that he was able to fill any chair in any 
of our theological seminaries. His services were in 
frequent demand for courses of lectures in our leading 
colleges and seminaries, and at least two of these 
courses have been put into book form. While his ser- 
vices were often sought for on great occasions, such as 
the annual meeting of the American Missionary As- 
sociation, the American Board of Commissioners for 
Foreign Missions, and similar gatherings, his best 
work was done in his own pulpit. His sermons were 
always prepared with the greatest care, and except on 
rare occasions, were delivered without a note, and with 
wonderful beauty of diction and irresistible logic to 
the audiences of two thousand cultured people who 
hung on his words every Sabbath, and who regarded 
him, not without good reason, ''the greatest preacher 
in America." 

The secret of the great success of Dr. Behrends as 
a preacher was not to be found in his striking per- 
sonaHty, nor in his musical voice, nor in his profound 
scholarship, but rather in his strong faith in the Bible 
as the Word of God, and his only creed, and that Christ 
Jesus, the Divine Saviour, is to win the whole world 
to Himself. From this belief he never wavered, and 
to him the preaching of the Gospel to men, and seeing 
them come into the kingdom, was tlie joy of his soul. 



19 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Dr. Behrends' Religious Career. 

By the Rev. Frank B. Cressey, Baptist Church, Wey- 
mouth, Mass. 

\_Congregationalist^ May 31, 1900.] 

Adolphus Julius Frederick Behrends was born at 
Nijmegen, Holland, December i8, 1839. 

Dr. Behrends' life was one of exceeding difficulty, 
exceeding triumph. Dutch by birth, he was also by 
birth and childhood training a Lutheran, almost of 
the Roman Catholic type; so far as was possible in 
the United States all the influences of a State religion 
gathered closely about him. As a young man, his 
parents then living in Ohio, he read the Bible for 
himself, found its teachings to be seriously at variance 
with the religion of his home life, and promptly decided 
to accept the Bible. The cost of such acceptance was 
very great. His father's door was closed against him ; 
for Christ's sake he became homeless. 

His study of the Bible decided him to become a 
Baptist; also, from the Bible he learned not only his 
way to Christ but his work for Christ to preach 
Christ. He determined to secure an education; went 
to Denison University, Greenville, Ohio, and ''worked 
his way through college," during the presidency of 
that skilled scholar. Dr. Samson Talbot. Then at 
Rochester Theological Seminary, he was a pupil of 
the prince of teachers and preachers, Dr. E. G. Robin- 
son, with whom in the class-room he had many a tilt — 
an exercise heartily enjoyed by both. 

Dr. Behrends graduated from Rochester Seminary 
in 1865, married an estimable Presbyterian woman 

20 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

of Rochester, and settled with the Warburton Avenue 
Baptist Church of Yonkers, N. Y., its membership in- 
cluding Dr. Edward Bright, editor of the New York 
Examiner, and from whose hands (unless serious mis- 
take is here made) Mrs. Behrends often received the 
Lord's Supper before she became a Baptist. Dr. Beh- 
rends remained at Yonkers eight years, and while 
there preached a "Baptist'' sermon extreme enough 
for the most extreme Baptist. He then went to the 
First Baptist Church of Cleveland, Ohio, which 
brought him again into the State of his Lutheran boy- 
hood, and also into immediate neighborhood rela- 
tions with at least one minister whose denominational 
antagonisms were by no means helpful to one of Bap- 
tist thought and feeling. In scarcely more than a year 
after going to Cleveland he was led to preach one of the 
strongest of so-called "open-communion" sermons. It 
grieved his church, and brought on him the venom- 
ously severe criticisms of many. But his church did 
not ask him to resign, such prominent members as 
James M. Hoyt and B. F. Rouse seeming to feel that 
lack of agitation and lapse of time would help the 
pastor to come again into the Baptist faith. 

Yet the criticisms continued, and after more than 
a year, Dr. Behrends resigned, and went immediately 
to the pastorate of a Congregational Church in Provi- 
dence, R. I. A copy of his letter of resignation lies 
before me; its date is January 23, 1876. By his request 
it took effect eight days later. He says: "After thir- 
teen months of varied experience, since the utterance 
of my views on the communion question, I find myself 
so radically at variance with the denominational spirit 

21 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

that a peaceful withdrawal from the Baptist body 
seems to me my only honest and honorable course." 
He speaks of ''unrestrained assault" upon himself, 
which had become ''practically unendurable and al- 
most a wrong at the bar of his conscience," but imme- 
diately adds that he does "not impeach his brethren as 
guilty of conscious and designed intolerance." "I pro- 
pose to indulge in no parting philippics, nor do I mean 
to assume a polemical attitude. I wish to withdraw 
quietly, and as peacefully to resume my work as a 
Christian minister in the next field of God's appoint- 
ment. For you and for me the world is wide enough 
and time is too short and too precious to be wasted in 
needless friction." 

Dr. Behrends' letter of resignation showed him to be 
utterly at variance with the denomination whose fel- 
lowship and honors he had so long enjoyed. That 
he held these divergent views intelligently and con- 
scientiously no one of his Baptist brethren has ever 
doubted, however great their disappointment and 
sorrow at his holding them. And it is doubtless true 
that there was no real necessity for Dr. Behrends to 
leave the Baptist denomination so far as Baptists 
themselves were concerned. For while Baptists are 
intelligent and unflinching in their views of Biblical 
truth, there is always among them large and honorable 
room for brethren of quite dissimilar views. The 
thought still remains with many that it would have 
been better in many respects if Dr. Behrends, after 
preaching his "open-communion" sermon, had been 
contented quietly to continue as a Baptist. He loved 
his Cleveland church and his Cleveland church loved 

22 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

him. He went from them of his own accord; they 
sorrowed to have him go, and had he remained with 
them they would have been none the less a Baptist 
church than before. 

In the letter of reply to the resignation, the church 
expressed profound surprise and regret that Dr. Beh- 
rends should then hold convictions as to Christian bap- 
tism so unlike those held by him when called to the 
pastorate and, in their view, "so out of harmony with 
the command of Christ and the just interpretation of 
the Scriptures and of apostolic usage." To this they 
add that in the severance of the pastoral relation they 
are "mindful of a cardinal principle of Baptist faith 
which concedes to all unfettered religious freedom," 
and assure him of their prayer that God's blessing may 
attend him in his labors with other denominations with 
whom he may be in accord, "and whom we would 
honor and love with unfeigned sympathy as sincere, 
and as entitled to freedom of conscience equally with 
ourselves, and as doing in their several spheres vital 
service for Christ." Dr. Behrends and the Baptists 
parted in mutual love and with mutual regret. 

In a private letter written a year ago last March, 
he says : "I am glad to add that my old friendships 
have been a constant source of joy to me, very few 
having felt it their duty to question my sincerity. I 
left for the sake of peace, and because I saw that 
among American Baptists there were none who would 
stand on my ground or recognize it as tenable. I am 
not and would not be regarded as a representative 
Congregationalist in many minor matters, in which my 
Baptist training is manifest to all, but I am left to do 

23 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

my work in peace and receive the most cordial fellow- 
ship. Twenty-three years in my present church rela- 
tions, sixteen of them in Brooklyn, have convinced me 
that I made no mistake, while I have every reason to 
be grateful that my early Christian life and my theo- 
logical training were shaped under Baptist influences. 
Many of the questions which disturb New England 
theology to-day cause me no uneasiness, because Dr. 
Robinson steered me into the open sea, where these 
squalls do not blow." 

Now that Dr. Behrends is dead, possibly an increased 
number will join with him and others in the thought 
that some qf the criticisms of a quarter of a century 
ago were needlessly severe. To dissent emphatically 
from a brother's religious views is one thing; to follow 
him torturingly is another thing. Also, may it not be 
that sometimes not sufficient allowance is made for 
one's former religious surroundings? A born-and- 
bred Lutheran, like Dr. Behrends, would hardly be ex- 
pected, from human point of view, to be as thorough 
a Baptist — whatever that may mean — as one with, 
perhaps, less real intelligence, who had never lived 
outside a Baptist family. 

Dr. Behrends was a man of exceptionally great pulpit 
power ; he was a deep and careful thinker ; he has left 
a broad and deep mark as a minister of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. It is an honor to the Baptist ministry that 
he was once one of its number; he always retained a 
deep and abiding love for his Baptist brethren. His 
death is. a great loss to the religious forces of the 
United States. 



24 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 
The Great Preacher. 

[From Christian Work, May 31, 1900.] 

In the death of the Rev. Dr. A. J. F. Behrends no 
ordinary man passes away, and no one denomination 
suffers less. As his sympathies and his whole relig- 
ious nature struck deeper and extended higher than 
any denominational reactments and vaster than the 
area circumscribed by them, so his loss is a bereave- 
ment that falls upon the whole Church. We say this 
in no spirit of praise for the dead divine; — he is be- 
yond all that, and to praise such a man, it is no mere 
hyperbole to say, is to gild refined gold. And here 
we may say, and most truly so, that Dr. Behrends was 
not only in the widest and most accurate sense of the 
term a great preacher, but he was one whose elements 
of greatness were perceived only by the few. Ordi- 
narily he was known as a strong preacher, an earnest 
preacher, one who had evidenced his power by success- 
fully succeeding such a remarkable man as Henry 
Martyn Scudder, preacher, physician, missionary, 
naturalist, poet, of deep sympathetic nature, high men- 
tal equipment and resourceful abilities. And although 
it may seem a great deal to say, it is, we believe, quite 
within the bounds of exact fact to assert that among 
the hundred thousand and more ministers in this coun- 
try, in mental equipment no man could successfully 
assert a claim of superiority to the great man who has 
just passed away. From the precocious age of fifteen, 
when he mastered Bledsoe's Theodicy, to the close of 
his life, he acquired the whole gamut of the philoso- 
phies : Hamilton, Kant, Hegel, Lotze, and McCosh ; 

25 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Caird, Porter, Buller and Martineau were familiar to 
him, and were absorbed and mastered by him, while 
he reveled in Carlyle, delighted in Goethe, laughed in 
Dickens, and found refreshment and stimulation and 
rest in Homer, Dante, Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson, 
in Lecky, Rawlinson, Sayce ; it may be said everything 
was grain that came into his hopper and was converted 
into nourishing, stimulating food. 

We cannot fail to notice one remarkable phase of 
Dr. Behrends' character : his broad sympathetic nature. 
It was his wonderful development in this direction 
which gave him his sense of proportion By which he 
reversed the perspective of your narrow hyper-denomi- 
nationalist. Instead of the denomination towering in 
the foreground, as it does with so many lesser minds, 
with him Christ and his Gospel were everything, while 
denominationalism was only the indistinguishable in- 
finitesimal point in the distance. It was this spirit, this 
equipment, that carried him, in the intensity of his feel- 
ing and in the full conviction of his reason, at the 
late Ecumenical Council, to break out into his passion- 
ate utterances which carried his hearers by storm. 
Right in the midst of the movement, and at the very 
time when wild discussion was going on elsewhere 
over terminologies, and haggling was seen over creeds, 
Dr. Behrends, while confessing to his belief in creeds, 
said: "I will sign any creed that will permit me to 
sign all creeds. But unless you will permit me to 
sign all creeds, then I refuse to sign any of them." 
And again he declared: ''We must come back to the 
New Testament; our religion must centralize in per- 
sonal devotion to the personal Christ. He is our Mas- 

26 




THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

ter, He alone. We must stop deifying dogma. We 
must stop deifying ritual." Not that our preacher 
would do away with creeds, but he would have them 
centered upon the fundamentals, not upon the tenta- 
tive philosophies of religion; in other words, as he 
has been quoted in substance, one creed should include 
all creeds, and it should not be skeletonized specu- 
lation 

Of providence, foreknowledge, will and fate, 
Fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute, 

and all finding no end, "in wandering mazes lost." 

Up to the very last. Dr. Behrends gave close atten- 
tion to the scientific discussions of the day, and their 
bearing upon religious thought. While for a time his 
thought inclined him to a more technical interpretation 
of Scripture than would seem to accord with his wide 
horizon line, we believe in the last few years of his life 
these views were modified, and with the modification 
came a relief from restriction, and the development of 
the broader view which placed his ratiocination in such 
complete accord with his wide sympathies as to bring 
him intellectual rest, while his power with men was 
correspondingly increased. 

Taken away at sixty-one, dead in the plentitude of 
his powers, just as the fruit had ripened, the pastor 
of a church united upon him, a power in the pulpit, 
a comfort and stimulant in the pastorate, a strong man, 
a preacher of righteousness with whom scheme and 
"plan'' and philosophy were less than love and light 
and Ufe, one with whom the Gospel, and only the Gos- 
pel, made radiant the pathway to the skies, our preacher 

27 



THE CHRIST OT NINETEEN CENTURIES 

passes away and leaves a lasting beneficent influence 
behind as he now sees the King in His Beauty in that 
land which for many of us is not very far off. 



The Scope of Dr. Behrends' Ministry. 

[From Brooklyn Eagle^ May 22, 1900.] 

Dr. Behrends was a modest man, and most delicate 
in the performance of many of the duties incidental 
to his pastorate. This was particularly noticeable on 
the occasions of receiving members into the church 
for their first time, in the baptism of infants and adults 
alike, in the marriage ceremony, and in funeral obser- 
vances. He studied the canons of good taste in every 
direction, sometimes even to the point of erring, in 
cases where the advice of over-punctilious persons 
prevailed. Left to his own individual judgment he 
was level headed, and invariably a reliable and wise 
counsellor. He excelled as a powerful preacher, one 
who dared to give utterance to his convictions after he 
had calmly weighed them in his study. 

His last exhibition of this was given in his cele- 
brated address at Carnegie Hall on May i. That was 
not a spontaneous outflow of an over-excited brain. 
The ground he assumed was all thought out, except as 
to some rhetorical effects, beforehand. His earnest- 
ness was as deliberate as it was bold and fearless. His 
recent sermon on ''The Incarnate Christ'' is one of the 
freest conceptions on this subject known in modern 

28 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

theology. Its statements are worked out with logical 
keenness and close sequence, and the doctrine of the 
incarnation is unfolded with a plainness of diction 
which commends itself at once to the commonest as 
well as the most cultured understanding. His pulpit 
deliverances were never ''over his people's heads/' but 
always addressed not only with the evident desire that 
the speaker should be comprehended, but with the 
manifest determination that his Master's message 
should be received as the dictum of Jesus Christ, and 
not the say-so of Dr. Behrends. 

In 1888 and 1889 Dr. Behrends gave a course of 
sermons the general title of which was ''Birdseye 
Views of the Bible." That was a notable undertaking, 
and one in the prosecution of which he said his mind 
underwent a new discipline, and he acquired new light 
upon the unquestionable inspiration of the Scriptures. 
The preaching of that series of discourses at first con- 
fronted him with new difficulties as to method of treat- 
ment, born of the increasing magnitude assumed by 
the theme itself. He over-mastered every obstacle, 
and the discourses, which were printed in the Eagle, 
were marvels of compactness in style of thought. The 
pastoral spirit of those sermons may be worthy a single 
illustration — an excerpt from the ''Birdscye View of 
the Psalms," as follows : 

The Psalter is a perpetual crucifixion followed by a 
perpetual resurrection ; and it is this that has given to 
the Psahns their infinite pathos and abiding power. 
What now do these noble Psalms contain? I cannot 
undertake to answer that question for you. You must 
read them for yourselves alone and when your heart 

29 




THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

is heavy. They are a grand covert when the storms 
burst over you and the depths are broken up, when 
heart and flesh fail you. They are pervaded through 
and through with a vivid sense of the Divine presence. 
God is always near. That is the golden thread upon 
which the pearls of song are strung, and the God of 
the Psalms is a being of wondrous majesty and gen- 
tleness, with whom there is forgiveness that He may 
be feared, so strange is the grace of pardon, so sweet 
is its assurance. In the Psalms it is always the honest 
soul that pleads. The suppliant's abasement is never 
his debasement. He is kingliest when he is lowliest. 

Dr. Behrends' series of discoures on "Socialism" at- 
tracted immense congregations. It was evident 
throughout the series that the preacher knew what he 
was about, and that if logical argument was needed 
to dispose of the flimsy assumptions of professed doubt 
and criticism, there was an abundant supply. It was 
remarkable that in the publication of these deliverances 
in the Eagle there was not a single attempt to contro- 
vert the work done in the Central Church pulpit. 

A sermon preached on May 15, 1887, on '*The In- 
corruptible Life," made a profound impression upon 
those who heard it, and in order that the people might 
have its comforting assurances in their possession, it 
was published in tasteful pamphlet form. An extract 
from this sermon shows what Dr. Behrends' convic- 
tions were in regard to the future of the Christian's 
life. He assumed that the capacities of the spirit were 
enlarged and intensified. Of departed spirits, he said : 

They are said to be at rest, with Christ, and in 
Paradise. They are at rest, because forever freed 
from the infirmities of their mortal state, delivered 

30 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

from the shackles of a diseased and dying body ; with- 
out heartache, or headache, or handache. They are 
with Christ, in a higher fellowship and activity than 
was their privilege here. There was more power in 
the one day of Pentecost than in all the thirty-four 
years of our Lord's mortal ministry. One hour of 
Paradise is worth more than a lifetime on earth, 
though prolonged to fourscore years. Knowledge is 
clearer and more comprehensive. Love is more in- 
tense and holy. Joy is deeper. Activity is more 
varied and refreshing. But your poor heart cries out : 
''Am I, then, forgotten in this flood of joy?'' For- 
gotten ? No ! a thousand times, No ! They know you 
are coming, though they know not when ; and at every 
knock upon the death portals they wonder whether you 
have come. They know you are coming, nor will you 
need to wait for them long when your heart has ceased 
its beating, and your surprises under their loving 
guidance will be a new joy to them. They know you 
are coming — coming from toil and tears to rest and 
laughter, from loneliness and heartaches to blessed fel- 
lowships and a divine guidance. Your coming will 
increase their blessedness. For they are not perfect 
without us. . . . There is to be a last deathbed, 
as once there was a first. And when the last grave 
shall have been filled, while the bereaved perchance 
stand about it in chastened grief and hope, the great 
eternal transfiguration shall chase away the night for 
ever. 

It was on the day of his last appearance in the 
Central Church pulpit that Dr. Behrends said that 
when he struck loose from the Baptists as a denom- 
ination in Cleveland, he stood ready for an open door, 
and determined to accept the first call that came to 
him, whether it was Methodist, Presbyterian or Con- 
gregationalist. The call came from the Union Church 

31 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

ill Providence, R. I., and he accepted it gladly. "All I 
want," said he, ''is the open door where I can preach 
to perishing souls the everlasting blessedness of that 
Christ who said, 'Whosoever liveth and believeth in 
Me shall never die, for God so loved the world 'that 
He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever be- 
lieveth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting 
life/ " 

As a Congregationalist, Dr. Behrends accepted the 
order and practice of that body as most available for 
the exercise of perfect freedom in preaching the Gos- 
pel. His views as a Congregationalist were fully and 
eloquently exploited in his address delivered before the 
Congregational Club of New Haven, Conn., on the 
occasion of the three hundredth anniversary of the 
Martyrs' Church, organized in London, 1592; and 
again before the Manhattan Conference of Congrega- 
tional Churches at the autumnal meeting in the South 
Congregational Church, November 18, 1897. 

In celebrating the seventeenth year of his pastorate 
in the Central Congregational Church on February 
25 last, his sermon was affectionate and earnest. In- 
cidentally he alluded to the work he had done in vin- 
dication of the integrity of the Holy Scriptures, and 
in concluding said: "The Scriptures master me by 
their contents ; they hold me captive by their tone ; 
Jesus Christ, in whom they culminate, is so full of 
grace and truth, so majestic in character, so authori- 
tative in word and so mighty in deed, that He wins 
and holds my absolute confidence. There I stand, and 
the book which He bids me read and search I will 
surrender at no man's bidding." 

32 




WAR13URTON AVENUE BAPTIST ChURCH, YoNKERS, N. Y. 
(Dr. Behrends' First Pastorate) 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 
Dr. Behrends in Cleveland. 

In 1883 the people of the First Baptist Church of 
Cleveland, Ohio, observed with spirited ceremony its 
semi-centennial. An account of the observances and 
several papers concerning the history of the church 
were gathered into a volume and published. Among 
these is a paper on 'The Pastorates from 1846 to 
1883," by Mr. L. Prentiss. The portions devoted to 
the work of the Rev. Dr. Behrends are as follows : 

On June 6, 1873, Dr. A. J. F. Behrends became the 
pastor of the church, in answer to its unanimous call, 
and continued in that office until February i, 1876. 
The church life and work were fully maintained dur- 
ing his ministry. There were 74 baptized, 105 re- 
ceived by letter, and 17 by experience — in all, 196, in 
his pastorate. His earnest desire for the conversion 
of souls, and for the growth of the church in moral 
and religious power was very great, and found special 
expression during the fall and winter of 1874-5, in 
the meetings then held. 

In 1874 the Idaka Sunday School was organized 
and received his hearty indorsement and cooperation. 
The school had an attendance of about 128 scholars 
and teachers at its commencement, and now has an 
average attendance of about 255 scholars and teachers, 
and is growing in strength and interest. 

The Trinity Baptist Church was organized during 
the pastorate of Dr. Behrends, and received his earnest 
aid and encouragement, and the church again spared 
some of its valuable members to aid in the establish- 
ment and success of the new interest. 

33 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

As a pastor, Dr. Behrends was friendly, unassum- 
ing, and sincerely interested in the people of his 
charge. He was a man of strong, large nature, and 
great earnestness, energy, independence, and moral 
courage. Of a devout spirit, his prayers were specially 
impressive and helpful. As a preacher he possessed 
rare power of the most solid character. United w4th 
a clear and strong grasp of his subject, he had a full, 
ready and choice command of language in which to 
clothe and enforce his strong thoughts. He was ac- 
customed to go directly to the heart of his subject, and 
to arouse attention and interest at once, by the clear- 
ness, earnestness, and power of its presentation. There 
was nothing of the merely sensational in his preach- 
ing; but, on the other hand, he always addressed 
himself directly to the best judgment and convictions 
of his hearers. To an intelHgent and thoughtful 
church like this, such preaching w^as not only inter- 
esting, but it gave the truth larger and stronger mean- 
ing, and much of its force has gone into the thinking 
and lives of his hearers, as living forces for good. — 
History of the First Baptist Churchy Cleveland, Ohio. 



34 



PART II. 



The Temple and the Cross. 

THE Temple did not save the nation any more 
than the throne of David had done. The priest- 
hood proved to be as broken a reed for national 
support as had the royalty. The Temple was doomed 
when men came to glory in its marble and gold. It 
was desecrated by Antiochus and ground into dust 
by the Romans. Neither in throne nor temple was 
Israel's hope and refuge, but in Him whose servant 
David was, and whose glory filled the sanctuary. 
Alas ! Israel discerned not the hour of its immortal 
coronation. The King came at last, but in such hum- 
ble guise that His own received Him not and crucified 
Him as a blasphemer. Not even yet doth Israel 
behold its deliverance, its true return from a captivity 
of more than eighteen honored centuries, and its 
vocation to a mightier mission than any that dawned 
upon David or Malachi. But Jehovah has not cast 
off His people. They shall look on Him whom they 
have pierced. They shall be healed of their blindness. 
They shall return in holy repentance and in ardent 
faith. Then shall they see that neither the throne 
of David, nor the Temple of Solomon, but the cross 
of Jesus Christ is the magnet by which the seed of 
Abraham is to conquer the world. 

35 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 
The Edict of Cyrus. 

I doubt whether Isaiah and Jeremiah, Zachariah and 
Haggai, Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah, measured 
the full significance of the time in which they lived, 
and of the work which they prosecuted with such 
tireless energy. But subsequent events have made it 
plain that these Jewish patriots and peers discovered 
what their heathen contemporaries did not suspect — 
the tremendous and revolutionary importance of the 
birth of the Persian Empire. It is an intuition so re- 
markable, confined to the prophets of this period, that 
its existence among them points to a Divine revelation. 
More than 2,400 years have passed since the edict of 
Cyrus sent a thrill of wonder and joy through the 
hearts of the Jewish exiles. Cyrus had been king for 
nearly twenty years when he marched his victorious 
army against the proud city of Babylon. In the North 
and far West his arms had been victorious. Assyria 
had been completely subdued. At Sardis, Cresus, 
the proud and rebellious king of Lydia, had been 
humbled. Only Babylon remained defiant, strong, 
wealthy and proud, boasting of a history of 2,000 
years. Babylon was the Rome of the Orient, the 
headquarters of Asiatic despotism and Asiatic idola- 
trous power. Its antiquity always gave to it a certain 
pre-eminence, and under Nebuchadnezzar it vaulted 
into unchallenged supremacy. No one dreamed that 
the city could ever lose its prestige. You know how, 
at a later day and for many centuries, Rome secured 
and held the place of the older city. Rome became the 
seat and center of political and religious power, bear- 

36 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

ing sway over a hundred million souls. Rome's history 
was so wonderful that she became known as the 
Eternal City, just as Babylon had been named Lucifer, 
the Son of the Morning. And when Rome fell a prey 
to the barbarian invaders, when the Huns plundered 
the Empire, and the Goths sat in the palaces of the 
Caesars, and the Vandals ravaged the land, amazement 
and terror filled all hearts, and even Jerome feared 
for the result. It was then that Augustine wrote his 
''City of God," the noblest of all his works, which 
stamps him as the Isaiah of his time, and in which he 
rallied the hopes of his Christian countrymen. Nine 
hundred years before a similar storm had burst upon 
Babylonia, and the earlier crisis was in some re- 
spects more important than the later one. 



Overthrow of Babylon. 

The most cruel and debasing idolatry was en- 
trenched in Babylon, and the city's fame gave to 
idolatry in general a certain pre-eminence and claim 
to supremacy. Its overthrow came from the North, 
from a race with simple manners and with a simple 
religion. Cyrus was the Attila of Asia, the scourge 
of God, whose stinging blows brought Babylon to 
the dust. The Persians lived in an inhospitable region, 
inured to hardship, famed for three things, their 
bravery, their energy and their truthfulness. They 
were dualists in religion, believing in an Evil and in 
a Good God, but worshipping only the latter. They 
were at heart monotheists, and this accounts for their 

37 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

friendliness to the Jews. Their accession to imperial 
power, therefore, was both a political and a religious 
revolution. It brought the Indo-European races to 
the front. It ended the political supremacy of the 
Hametic and the Shemetic tribes of Egypt, Assyria and 
Babylonia, and placed the scepter in the hands of the 
sons of Japhet, passing from the Persian to the Greek, 
the Roman, the Teuton and the Anglo-Saxon. And 
with this change of empire came the overthrow of the 
ancient idolatry, a shock from which it never recov- 
ered, and opening a free and wider path to the mono- 
theistic faith. The news spread like wildfire, and 
wherever it was heard it produced amazement, mingled 
with terror and gladness. The supporters of the old 
regime trembled. The oppressed were glad. The 
tidings seemed almost too good to be true, for when 
Nebo stooped and Bel bowed down it seemed as if 
the millennium had come. The prophetic utterances 
that accompanied the event, or which predicted its 
near advent, are keyed to the highest pitch of triumph. 
The dead in their graves are represented as taking part 
in the universal jubilee. 



Birth of the Synagogue. 

In seven months Nehemiah had finished his task, 
and then he joined with Ezra in pushing the work of 
religious reform. The book of the law was read and 
expounded as it ever afterward continued to be in 
the synagogues. All foreign elements were eliminated 
from the domestic life of the people. Regular pro- 

38 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

vision was made for the service of the sanctuary, and 
the observance of the Sabbath was restored and vigor- 
ously enforced. In all this Nehemiah found a vast 
amount of stolid indifference and even resistance. His 
prayer, "Remember me, O my God, for good," with 
which he closes his account, sounds like a lamentation. 
It is the sad appeal of a man whose patriotic devotion 
and religious zeal had met with scanty sympathy and 
support. But the work of Zerubbabel, of Ezra and 
of Nehemiah lasted. The temple maintained its as- 
cendancy. Mixed marriages were placed under the 
ban. The Sabbath was observed with ceremonial 
exactness. 

The synagogue, with its systematic interpretation 
of the law, became a permanent institution. The 
scribe became a leading figure in the reconstructed 
society. The character of the Jew assumed a kind of 
hardness and narrowness contrasting unfavorably 
with the nation's earlier life. But the Scriptures 
assumed prominence, and through their wide distri- 
bution in the Greek language, the Jew gave to his 
faith a universal though secret ascendancy which gave 
a mighty impulse to the preaching of the Gospel. For 
on its human side the synagogue was the forerunner of 
the Christian Church. It was in the synagogue that 
our Lord was trained in the knowledge of the Old 
Testament Scriptures; for the synagogue was the 
great popular library of Christ's time. It was in the 
synagogue of Nazareth that He preached His first ser- 
mon, and with the synagogue a large part of His 
ministry was identified. It was to the synagogues that 
the Apostles resorted in their missionary travels. 

39 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

The organization of the synagogue was reproduced 
in that of the church. The service of the former gave 
shape to the worship of the latter, concluding with 
the Lord's Supper, and held on the first day of the 
week. The officers of the synagogue reappear in the 
elders and deacons of the Apostolic Churches. And 
the synagogue was the creation of Ezra, who is re- 
vered by the Jews as a second Moses and as greater 
than Elijah. Here, in the synagogue, where the Old 
Bible was read and explained, is the formal link be- 
tween Judaism and Christianity, and though many 
readers yawn as they peruse the pages of Ezra and 
Nehemiah, wondering why these books should have so 
exalted a place, the bells of the Holy Sabbath never 
summon us to worship without an unconscious tribute 
to the labors of these earnest and devoted servants 
of the Lord. 



An Axiom to Remember. 

Punishment is what we deserve. Chastisement is 
what we need. 



Grace to Live, and Grace to Die. 

I have heard people say, 'T fear I have not grace to 
die." You do not need it till the time comes. You 
need the grace to live, the grace to work, the grace 
to wait. It will be time enough when your summons 
comes to have grace to die. 

40 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Our Own Will. 

The death of Christ is sufficient for all, but effective 
only to those who believe. Christ is the second Adam 
or head of the race. As in Adam all die, so in Christ 
shall all be made to live. There is nothing in the way 
of our salvation through Jesus Christ but our own 
will. 



The Story of Esther. 

The Persian king is a tyrant and a brute. Haman 
is unscrupulous and cruel. Our judgment of Esther 
must be one of qualified approval at best, though 
some of the criticisms upon her character and conduct 
have been unwarrantably severe. She certainly ap- 
pears in a much more favorable light than her com- 
panions, the noblest and purest inmate of the harem; 
but we cannot reconcile ourselves to the personal 
degradation in which she permitted herself to be 
involved. The most that can be said is that her be- 
havior was passive, that she resorted to no intrigue, 
that she was the victim of circumstances in an Oriental 
despotism over which she had no control, and that she 
retained her simplicity of character amid the most 
unfavorable surroundings. But she certainly remains 
inferior to a woman like Ruth. Mordecai too, with all 
his sturdy qualities, his fearlessness, and loyalty, and 
patriotism, reveals a certain hardness and haughtiness, 
and an easy compliance with the polygamous customs 
of the Persian court, which do not make him a model 
character. There is a good deal of the ambitious 

41 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

political rival in his treatment of Haman and the eager- 
ness with which he supplants the disgraced and fallen 
prince; and his surrender of his niece, even if we 
suppose him to have been innocent of complicity, is 
not creditable to him. There is an absence of fineness 
in the narrative contrasting with the earlier histories 
of Joseph and Ruth. 

I agree with Luther, that there is a good deal of 
"heathen naughtiness" in the book of Esther. I have 
no very great admiration for its characters. To me 
it is an unfounded and absurd fancy that there is any- 
thing Messianic or Christian in the story, and that 
Esther represents the church coming to the Gentiles. 
Such a use of this narrative is shocking to the moral 
sense, and calculated to undermine reverence for the 
Word of God. It ought not to be difficult for a candid 
reader to extract the moral of the little book, and to 
discover the reason why it claims a place in the Old 
Testament Scriptures. These Scriptures trace the 
dealings of God with Israel, to whom He gave His 
law, and of whom Christ was born. They tell us not 
only what He said to them, but also what He did for 
them. They show us that while He chastened them 
oft and sorely. He did not abandon them, nor did He 
permit their enemies to crush them out. Against 
Pharaoh He raised up Moses, against Ahab and Jeze- 
bel He raised up Elijah, against Haman He raised 
up Esther and Mordecai. And in the last case the 
imperfection of His instruments only throws into 
stronger relief His eternal and tender guardianship. 
The lesson of the book is an impersonal one. It has 
been fitly called the "Romance of Providence, the Book 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

of the Hidden Hand." It is a tight and tangled knot 
that is here unexpectedly and curiously unraveled. 
The devices of the wicked are brought to naught and 
they are snared in the net which they have spread 
for the innocent. Haman and his sons swing on the 
gallows which he had erected for Mordecai; and by 
a strange combination of trifling circumstances, a 
people that was to have been exterminated is not only 
delivered, but commended and honored in an imperial 
edict. This is the one great and permanent lesson of 
the story, that 

''There is a Providence that shapes our ends 
Rough hew them how we may." 



Daniel the Prophet of Deeds. 

In the Hebrew Bible the book of Daniel is placed 
among the Hagiographa, the Holy Writings, pamph- 
lets that content themselves with the narration of per- 
sonal experiences, or the description of historical 
events, leaving the reader to discover their meaning 
and importance for himself. They fall into two general 
classes, the poetical and the historical. To the former 
belong Job, the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the 
Song of Solomon and the Lamentations of Jeremiah; 
and in their poetic literature we can trace all the vary- 
ing moods of the spiritual life of the time; the per- 
plexities with which thought wrestled, and the reason- 
ing by which their solution was sought; the restless 
search of the human heart for an abiding peace, and 

43 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

the conclusion of the long and painful quest. In these 
poetical books, the most thoughtful and devout men 
of the time take us into their confidence, and give us 
the benefit of their ripest experiences. The historical 
group contains Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Daniel, 
and the Chronicles. 

These books are descriptive of events, as the poetical 
books are descriptive of experiences. Or to phrase 
the distinction in another way, the methods of com- 
position in the poetical books is psychologic and ana- 
lytic ; in the historical books it is pictorial. In the one 
case we deal with thoughts ; in the other case we deal 
with things. Thus Ruth photographs the domestic life 
of David's ancestors. Ezra and Nehemiah picture the 
national movement which resulted in the rebuilding 
of the temple and the planting of the synagogue. 
Chronicles traces the importance of the temple in Jew- 
ish history from the time of David to the first Cyrus. 
Esther emphasizes the unexpected and remarkable 
deliverance of the Jews — of the dispersion from the 
insane fury of an Oriental tyrant. In all this there is 
no preaching. The moral is not intended nor ap- 
pended, because the story is supposed to convey its 
own lesson. It is the revelation of God in works not 
in words ; in deeds rather than in doctrines. The book 
of Daniel belongs to this class, and is placed between 
Esther and Ezra, simply because its style is descriptive, 
not didactic. It simply outlines the personal fortunes 
of a man whose life spans the entire period of the 
Babylonian captivity, and tells us what outlook into the 
future was given to him of the world's political history. 
The visions of Daniel constitute a philosophy of his- 

44 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

tory valuable as the contribution of a man whose 
abilities secured for him high ofificial station in the 
government of his conquerors. 



Prayer a Dialogue. 
Prayer is not a monologue; it is a dialogue. 



I 



Daniel's Character. 

It was during the first Babylonian invasion, in the 
year 606 B. C, eighteen years before the final destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem, provoked by the treachery of Zede- 
kiah, that Daniel was carried away to the imperial city 
on the banks of the Euphrates. He was of princely 
lineage, if not of royal birth. His last recorded vision 
dates in the third year of Cyrus, 533 B. C, seventy- 
three years after his removal from his native land. 
If we suppose him to have been 16 or 18 years old 
at that time, he must have lived to be 90 years old. 
During all these years nothing occurs to mar the sim- 
plicity and symmetry of his character. He earned the 
surname of "The Beloved,'' a favorite with God and 
men. Upon his first appearance at the royal court 
everybody seems to have fallen in love with him, 
in spite of his alien lineage. It was a bold request that 
he made when he asked that a simpler diet might be 
provided for himself and his friends ; but the request 
was made with such sincerity and sweetness that it 
could not be denied. The lad was studious and soon 
distanced all his companions, being versed in all the 

45 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

learning of the Chaldeans and in the higher wisdom of 
Moses. He retained his early modesty. He never 
became a place hunter, and he never shrank from any 
post of duty to which he was called. His reputation 
and standing outlived the Babylonian dynasty. Darius 
prized him as highly as did Nebuchadnezzar. The 
utmost vigilance and- scrutiny of his enemies could 
find nothing wrong in his official conduct. Before 
he was 35 years old he was so widely and favorably 
known for his uprightness and wisdom that his name 
appears in the prophecies of Ezekiel. We discover in 
him a peculiar and high-minded consciousness. He 
does nothing from policy, everything from principle. 

There is an equally remarkable completeness in his 
character. There are in it no violent contrasts, no 
lapses over which we must throw the mantle of charity. 
He is a man of the finest and firmest courage. He tells 
Nebuchadnezzar the truth; he is fearless before Bel- 
shazzar; he prays according to his habit, without a 
thought of the lion's den. He is always contented, 
whether filling a responsible post or remanded to ob- 
scurity. He bides his time, and he is full of charity. 
He cherishes no animosities. He does not turn upon 
his persecutors. He could have had no great love for 
the priestly class, but his first public appearance is on 
their behalf, because they had been condemned to 
death unless they could reproduce the king's forgotten 
dream. It is a noble figure that stands out against 
the dark background of general vanity, revelry, and 
cruelty; and is a notable instance of the supremacy 
of righteousness over brute force. 

It cannot be doubted that Daniel's quiet influence 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

at court must have done much to soften the rigors 
of the captivity, and it goes far toward explaining the 
favorable disposition of Cyrus and the facilities which 
were gladly accorded to Zerubbabel by Cyrus, and to 
Nehemiah by Darius. As Joseph prepared the way 
for his father's household, so Daniel prepared the way 
for the captives of Judah. He had been eighteen 
years in Babylon when the captives came pouring in 
from the wasted city, and he was held in high esteem. 
They must have been considerately treated for his 
sake; and his name must have speedily become a 
household word among them. It was not a misplaced 
reverence. He has not suffered by a lapse of 2,400 
years, and we still summon men to the highest level of 
character when we say to them, ''Dare be like Daniel." 
When we turn from Daniel the man to Daniel the 
seer our task is not so easy. It belongs to the very 
nature of prediction that its precise fulfillment in point 
of time cannot be anticipated. The prophetic per- 
spective is without time, as the perspective on can- 
vas is without measurable distance. In the prophetic 
outlook the succession is logical, not chronological. 
Centuries count for nothing, millenniums are measured 
by an adverbial phrase such as ''immediately" or 
"after this." It is the principle of history upon which 
the prophet seizes, the final issue upon which he fixes 
his eye. 

The Book of Job. 

Job is a drama in three parts : the prologue, the 
argument, and the epilogue. The introduction has 
two parts, describing two scenes in heaven, with their 

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I 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

correspondent counterparts on the earth. The argu- 
ment falls into four parts : the dialogue between Job 
and his three friends ; the monologues of Job when he 
has silenced his accusers, and of which there are three ; 
the four speeches of Elihu, whom Job does not answer, 
and the double address of Jehovah, before whom Job 
humbles himself in penitent confession and humble 
trust. Then comes the epilogue or conclusion, in which 
Job is vindicated by his ]\Iaker, and made the recipient 
of a double blessing. There are twenty-eight speeches 
in all, and just one-half of these are credited to Job. 
The story closes with the statement that Job doubled 
his possessions ; that seven sons and three daughters 
were born to him, virtually doubling his household — 
as the dead are not lost — and that he lived to enjoy a 
sunny old age. The clue to the book is in the prologue 
or introduction. 

Job is first very briefly described as a wealthy prince, 
whose character commanded universal respect, and 
whose piety was equally marked. He feared God and 
eschewed evil. He was the head of a very happy fam- 
ily, all the members of which joined in every feast; 
while Job himself was careful to intercede on their 
behalf, by prayer and sacrifice, for any thoughtlessness 
of conduct into which they might have fallen. The 
piety of Job, so well known on earth, becomes a matter 
of discussion in heaven, in a public assembly of the 
angels who have come to receive their commands, 
and at which Satan is present. Jehovah speaks of Job 
in the highest terms. The devil sneers and declares 
that Job serves God only because God has always 
prospered him, and challenges the trial of a different 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

policy : ''Lay Thine hand upon him and he will curse 
Thee to Thy face." It is the old charge that every 
man has his price, and all virtue is varnished selfish- 
ness; that principle is only another name for policy, 
and that men will do right only so long as it pays. 
That challenge in heaven could not be ignored. It 
was a lie, but the falsehood required to be exposed 
by the real trial of Job. Then comes the first visitation 
of suffering, when, in swift succession, the robbers 
carried away his wealth and the storm swept all his chil- 
dren into eternity. He heard the news with calmness, 
until the last messenger announced the death of all 
his children ; then he could control his grief no longer. 
He arose, rent his mantle, shaved his head, and fell 
down to the ground. He was heart-broken; but he 
was not rebellious. With his face in the dust, he 
worshipped and uttered those immortal words : ''The 
Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed 
be the name of the Lord." 



The Philosophy of Suffering. 

The prologue in Job is a prophecy of the Cross. 
To the elevated and inspired thought of the author 
the last word on the mystery of suffering has not 
been spoken by those who emphasize its retributive 
and reformatory aspects. These are fully and ably 
set forth by Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar and Elihu, but 
the force of their impassioned speech does not carry 
conviction to the sufferer. The logic is thus shown 
to be insufficient. It does not meet the facts of the 
case. There is a punitive suffering; even Job admits 

49 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

that and declares that he needed no one to teach him 
that lesson. There is a disciplinary suffering — chas- 
tisement, by which good men are made better — ^but 
when Elihu commends this thought to Job, the crushed 
man finds no comfort in it, for his suffering has led 
him into sin rather than delivered him from it. The 
suffering of the righteous has a deeper reason. It is 
based upon a higher necessity. It is the inevitable 
attendant of the general conflict between Good and 
Evil wills that challenges God, in the presence of His 
angels, to give him a fair field among the best of men, 
declaring that every one of them can be brought to 
curse Him to His face. The plausible challenge can- 
not be declined, and the falsehood can only be dis- 
proved by actual trial. The moral sovereignty of 
God is involved in the issue, for if the result shows 
that no creature will worship Him when He weights 
him with suffering, then there is no essential reverence 
and love for Him anywhere, and His government is 
only of the sugar-plum order; and if God declines 
to make the trial. He is convicted of moral weakness 
in advance. Thus we come to the author's great and 
governing thought, that neither the righteousness of 
God nor the righteousness of man, neither the moral 
excellence of the ruler nor the full and unqualified 
loyalty of the subject can be made manifest and vindi- 
cated except by suffering. And such being the case, 
it should not surprise us that often the best men suffer 
most; because in them are represented the pivotal and 
strategic positions of the fierce battle. Nor can it seem 
strange that the holiest of all men suffered most in- 
tensely, because with Him the battle was either for- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

ever won or forever lost. This is the profound and 
permanent lesson of the Book of Job; it is the Old 
Testament drama of the Cross in history. 



The Scope of the Psalms. 

''Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel 
of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor 
sitteth in the seat of the scornful ; but his delight is in 
the law of the Lord ; and in his law doth he meditate 
day and night." The first word of this sentence, which 
may be regarded as standing for the text and theme 
of the Old Testament Psalter, is not an adjective, 
but a noun, and a noun in the plural number. The 
tone, furthermore, is one of grateful sacrifice, as if 
the vision of the good man's blessedness could not be 
traced by mortal pen. The sentence ought to end with 
an exclamation point. It is not an abstract proposition 
which the author means to prove, nor is it the expres- 
sion of a pious sentiment, uttered as a prayer or bene- 
diction, but the writer's personal testimony to a fact 
whose discovery fills him with glad and growing won- 
der. By a few rapid strokes the character of the good 
man is described as marked by an avoidance of evil 
thoughts and men, and by the loving, habitual rever- 
ence of the Law of God. Over this portrait stands the 
golden word ''Blessedness," written with feelings akin 
to those that master you when you look at one of Ra- 
phael's masterpieces. You are hushed into silence. 
You resent a whisper as sacrilege and comment as 
impertinent. It is a picture radiant with celestial 
light. 

51 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

The joys of the good man are so varied, so en- 
larging, so permanent, that only a plural noun can 
express them : for the plural, in the Hebrew, is the 
sign of variety, of completeness, of abiding freshness. 
Such is the note to which the Psalter is keyed. It is 
a book of hallelujahs. Happiness is the object of 
universal ambition and search. The Psalms go straight 
to the heart of that inquiry. They tell us where and 
how true happiness may be found, and the information 
is given in the form of personal experience. The 
testimony is all the more remarkable because it em- 
bodies the result which the Old Testament religion 
produced in the minds and hearts of those who re- 
ceived it gladly. Of that religion the Law was the 
great watchword. The word has a stern, hard, un- 
compromising sound. It seems to summon to a 
religion of constraint, and to induce a service of con- 
stant fear. But the godly man of the Psalms who has 
read that Law in the light of the older covenant makes 
it his delight and meditates upon it day and night. 
He is not driven by it, but drawn to it. Its prohibi- 
tions are to him the warnings of love, divine hedges 
along the path that leads to safety and joy. Obedience 
to what God has commanded is not felt to be a burden, 
but a perpetual gladness. 



The Psalms Arranged. 

The Psalms fall into three main groups : The Psalms 
of David, of Asaph, and his associates, and the anony- 
mous hymns. And as Asaph and his associates may 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

be regarded as the lieutenants of David, the collection 
falls into two great classes, ninety-nine being of 
Davidic origin or inspiration, and fifty being anony- 
mous, with the grand hymn of Moses as a keystone 
of Siniatic granite, binding together the two sections of 
this glorious arch of song. But David's pre-eminence 
in the Psalter cannot be measured by the number of 
Psalms ascribed to him. In literature and art it is 
the quality, not the quantity, which is the decisive test 
of superiority. The forty-second and the eighty- 
fourth Psalms are noble specimens of the contributions 
by the sons of Korah. The fiftieth Psalm shows the 
lyrical power of Asaph. The seventy-second is in 
Solomon's best vein. The anonymous ninety-first 
Psalm is one of the finest in the entire collection. Still 
David maintains the primacy, in variety of theme, in 
grandeur of thought, in the musical cadence and march 
of his verse. Milton recognized him as a poet of the 
highest order. The twenty-third is the sweetest of 
all the Psalms of trust, so fragrant are the pastures, 
so clear all the streams where the flock of God is 
shepherded. The fifty-first is the matchless Psalm 
of penitence where the broken heart sobs out its con- 
fession and appeals to the multitude of God's tender 
mercies. The twenty-second touches the greatest 
depths of distress, whose opening sentence our Lord 
appropriated when the heavens grew black over the 
cross. The one hundred and thirty-ninth is incom- 
parable for the compactness of its doctrine, a veritable 
compound of theology, a delineation of God and of 
His government calculated to inspire the profoundest 
reverence and awe. The nineteenth is the model Psalm 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

of praise in which heaven and earth, day and night, 
are represented as engaged in perpetual dialogue, re- 
counting the glory of God, while all His judgments 
are celebrated as radiant with light and cheer. The 
one hundred and third is the royal Psalm of thanks- 
giving, unequaled by any later utterance. The eight- 
eenth is the great Psalm of triumph, in which David, 
then at the zenith of his power, recalls the terrible 
straits of thirty years and celebrates the mercy of God, 
of whom he speaks as his cliff, his castle, his rock, 
his tower, his shield, his deliverer, the hour of his 
salvation. It is simply amazing that such and so 
many immortal lyrics should be born of a single brain 
and heart. No wonder that David has come to be 
known as ''the sweet singer of Israel." He smote his 
harp with the hand of a master, and made its voice the 
gentlest and the stormiest emotions of the human soul. 



The Psalms as a Solace. 

The Psalter is a perpetual crucifixion, followed by 
a perpetual resurrection; and it is this that has given 
to the Psalms their infinite pathos and abiding power. 
What now do these noble Psalms contain? I cannot 
undertake to answer that question for you. You must 
read them for yourselves alone, and when your heart 
is heavy. They are a grand covert when the storms 
burst over you and the depths are broken up, when 
heart and flesh fail you. They are pervaded through 
and through with a vivid sense of the Divine presence. 
God is always near. That is the golden thread upon 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

which the pearls of song are strung, and the God of 
the Psalms is a being of wondrous majesty and gen- 
tleness, with whom there is forgiveness that He may 
be feared, so strange is the grace of pardon, so sweet 
is its assurance. In the Psalms it is always the honest 
soul that pleads. The suppliant's abasement is never 
his debasement. He is kingliest when he is lowliest. 
The root of righteousness is in him, and that trans- 
figures his face. These songs embody the highest 
spirituality of thought in which altar and sacrifice lead 
to confession and faith in the promises of God. As 
Stanley says, "they scream for joy.'' 'We cannot pray 
the Psalms," says one of these most learned and devout 
students, ''without having our heart opened, our affec- 
tions enlarged, our thoughts drawn heavenward. He 
who can pray them best is nearest to God, knows most 
of the Spirit of Christ, is ripest for heaven." Lord 
open to each one of us this golden treasury of Thy 
word. 



David and Solomon Compared. 

The difference between David and Solomon is no- 
where more clearly brought to light than when we 
compare the Psalter with the book of Proverbs. The 
fear of the Lord is with both men the chief duty and 
glory of man. But with David this personal fellow- 
ship is prized for its own sake, constituting not merely 
the source but the substance of his blessedness. 
"Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is 
none upon earth that I desire beside Thee," may be 
regarded as the key to which every other psalm and 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

prayer is set. With Solomon, on the other hand, 
religion is prized for the practical benefits which it 
secures. It is indispensable to the equipment of the 
wise man. The sinner is a fool. His rejection of God 
is the extinction of reason. The temper of David is 
devotional ; the temper of Solomon is philosophical. 
Solomon looks at the question as a man of the world. 
The imperial indorsement of man is his reason. To 
act wisely is his whole duty, and the search for wisdom 
brings the king to the conclusion, which he places at 
the front of his maxims, that man's first and greatest 
need is the knowledge and fear of God. 



The Book of Proverbs. 

The book of Proverbs is really a treatise on wisdom. 
It is the earliest recorded attempt at a philosophy 
whose conclusions are thrown into the form of ad- 
dresses to the young, and of short, pithy sentences 
easily retained in the memory. The Proverbs are 
peculiar. They are not a collection of popular sayings, 
current in Solomon's time, and rescued by him from 
oblivion, embodying ''the wit of one and the wisdom 
of many," but striking statements of his own, and 
of some other men, embodying the result of wide 
observation and profound reflection, like the aphor- 
isms of Coleridge and the ''Table Talk" of Martin 
Luther. What we have is only a remnant, though a 
very carefully sifted and precious one ; for Solomon 
is reported by the author of First Kings to have 
spoken 3,000 proverbs, and composed over 1,000 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

poems, besides writing treatises on botany and zoology. 
He was a prolific scientific and philosophical author, 
the greater part of whose work has perished. We 
may presume that the cream of his thought has been 
preserved. And the book, as it stands, is plainly com- 
posite in its structure. 



A Priceless Necklace. 

The last chapter of Proverbs preserves the words 
which King Lemuel's mother taught him, and is, in 
many respects, the gem of the book. It contains thir- 
ty-one verses, of which the first nine describe the 
qualities of a good ruler, and the last twenty-two 
verses are an acrostic poem, one sentence for every 
letter of the Hebrew alphabet, describing the virtues 
and the incomparable worth of the ideal woman, wife 
and mother. There is a necklace of diamonds in the 
green vault of Dresden, valued at half a million dol- 
lars. There is an African diamond in New York City 
valued at $100,000. I held it in my hands a few days 
ago, and you may laugh at me when I say that I in- 
voluntarily kissed it, so radiant was its beauty. But 
here is a necklace of twenty-two jewels, each one of 
them a perfect brilliant, which the Bible binds with a 
golden clasp around the throat of every young woman. 
How marked the contrast with heathen literature, 
which speaks of woman only with a sneer, at best 
only with an air of pity and condescension. The Bible 
honors woman. This sweet acrostic poem is the divine 
ring of betrothal conferred upon every maiden, binding 
her to vows of purity and piety. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

A Book for the Young. 

Proverbs is the great book in the Bible for the 
young. The proverbs are the words of a father to his 
children. The main form of address is, ''My son/' 
because young men are most exposed and disposed 
to the sins that destroy character and embitter life. 
The proverbs are somewhat loosely joined together. 
There are frequent repetitions, but these repetitions 
are helpful as emphasizing the main dangers to which 
the young are exposed. They are especially warned 
against four sins : impurity, intemperance, lying and 
robbery. The warnings against impurity of life are the 
most frequent and solemn. I never read them without 
feeling that in them Solomon's wounded heart speaks. 
His domestic life was not a happy one. The yoke 
chafed him, the chains galled him. He speaks out 
of his own experience, and the young may well heed 
his admonition. With terrible vividness does he de- 
scribe the subtlety of the temptation, the suddenness 
of the fall, the bitterness of the awakening, the inevit- 
able and long life remorse. The man who loses his vir- 
tue takes a viper into his heart. He will always hear 
the hissing and feel the sting. Young man, read these 
chapters for yourself. 



Warning Against Robbery. 

Solomon warns the young against robbery of every 
kind, whether it be the robbery of violence or the 
robbery of false weights and measures. Don't steal. 
Three feet to the yard ! Sixteen ounces to the pound ! 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

2,000 pounds to the ton! A fair equivalent in every 
bargain you make — that is Solomon's advice, and he 
was a great merchant as well as a king. And all this 
he advises on the ground of practical wisdom, because 
honesty is the only safe policy, though he also declares 
that a violation of these mercantile rules is an abomina- 
tion unto the Lord. This book is full of downright 
good common sense, and is the best practical guide 
for young men to-day. 



The Scope and Style of Ecclesiastes. 

The book of Ecclesiastes is the saddest in the Bible. 
There is something disappointing in its style. It ranks 
lowest among the poetical books, without the spiritual 
fervor of the Psalms, and without the sustained ele- 
vation of thought in the Proverbs. Here and there 
the poetic fire breaks through, and the philosophic 
temper asserts itself; but it is the effort of an eagle 
whose wings are broken. There is no Summer in the 
book. A dull, heavy, grey atmosphere pervades it. 
The east winds sweep through all its chapters. There 
is just hope enough to save the writer from settled 
despair and suicide; not enough to change his moan 
into a song. It must have been written by an old 
man who had fallen into a state of chronic melan- 
choly, in whom habitual disappointment had produced 
mental vacillation, and whose faith in God was little 
more than a dull resignation to the inevitable, which, 
in his better moods, he hoped might terminate in a 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

rational and happy result. There is a double play of 
thought all through the book; a perpetual battle be- 
tween despair and hope; and this has led many to 
suppose that it is in reality a poetical dialogue, whose 
divisions cannot now be reproduced with exactness. 
The transitions are many and abrupt. There is a 
good deal of drifting, as when a rower loses his oars 
and is deluged by a wave. There are sudden leaps in 
thought, as when a skiff rises from the trough of the 
sea to the crest of the billow. But it will help us to 
remember that the thought moves always between 
these two extremes — all is vanity, even righteousness; 
righteousness cannot be vanity, and it must be well 
with them that fear God. The antithesis becomes 
more and more pronounced, until at last conscience 
triumphs and hope survives. 



Leaving the Pit of Despair. 

In Ecclesiastes there is a dash of cynicism when men 
are advised to be neither righteous nor wicked over 
much. Avoid extremes. It is not very high ground, 
to be sure ; but you must remember that this man is 
coming out of the pit of despair. This is the first 
ray of light that comes to him. He sees that man pos- 
sesses a divine gift for happiness, and that the first 
law for its attainment is contentment and moderation. 
The solution breaks upon him in the discovery that 
God made man upright, but that by his inventions 
man has marred the divine work. It is an inordinate 

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ambition that is man's curse. Simplicity is the direct 
and sure path to joy. And now a deeper voice makes 
itself heard. He cannot withhold his praise from 
wisdom and righteousness. These are good in them- 
selves. It is better to be wise than foolish, better to be 
true than false, better to be pure than impure. It is 
the whisper of conscience that he hears, and by it he 
is led to commend piety, reverence for the character 
and the commandments of God. There is something 
pathetic in the closing appeal to the young to remem- 
ber the Creator in the days of their youth, before 
the years of infirmity and exhaustion come ; before the 
body has become broken, and the spirit wounded by 
sin. And with this revived faith in God, and rever- 
ence for His law, comes the hope of a better day. It 
is very dim, but it is there. Every secret thing, 
whether it be good or evil, shall be brought to light 
The righteous and loving God is higher than the 
princes who delight in oppression. The soliloquy 
reaches its highest and final ground in the assurance 
that it cannot be well with the wicked, however he 
may seem to prosper, and however long his judgment 
may be delayed, and that it must be well with them 
that fear and obey God. You may say that there is 
no argument in this book, and you are right. But 
it mirrors the thoughts of a man who found himself 
in the prison of doubt and despair, but in whom the 
love of life and the authority of conscience demanded 
a new hearing, and it may do us good to see by what 
path he slowly and painfully found his way back to 
faith in the Living God. 



6i 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

The Office of the Heart. 

I am persuaded that there is no more frequent and 
fatal mistake than the failure to stand guard over the 
heart, to keep the inmost self free from invasion and 
harm. Augustine tells us that his search for truth and 
peace only brought him increasing bewilderment while 
he listened to the world's teachers; the precious treas- 
ure was found only when he faced God in his own 
heart. And how stands the case with many of us? 
We read but we do not think. We believe what 
others tell us ; we are afraid to trust the oracle within 
us. We are unsettled by a book, thrown into painful 
doubt and unrest; perplexed by arguments that we 
cannot answer, whose sophistry we may feel but cannot 
detect, whose conclusions startle us, when the heart 
within us, things that we deeply feel, is the court by 
which every book must be judged. For the soul is 
greater than any book, and the only authority is that 
which wins my spontaneous and glad assent. I would 
not divorce feeling and logic, though feeling is primary 
and fundamental. I would hug no faith that is not 
rational; but I would not follow a logic that antag- 
onizes my deepest convictions, and sports with my 
most crying needs. I would rather follow my own 
heart than another man's head. Guard your heart. 
The old advice fits our day. Has it ever come that 
you ought to have faith in yourself — that you ought 
to believe that in you, too, there is a heart, a something 
that has its profound convictions, its needs, its hopes 
and its fears, its unutterable and persistent hunger? 
Have there not been moments when God's presence 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

awed you, and when His peace stilled your tumult? 
The fear that there might not be a God, and that re- 
ligion was a delusion has frozen you to the core, while 
the resurging vision of Him has brought the Summer 
back. Why not trust your heart? Are you an in- 
carnate lie? Is the cry of your nature a mockery? 
No, therein your heart's need is the impregnable evi- 
dence. It was that appeal by which, early in the cen- 
tury, Schleiermacher roused Berlin and Germany from 
its religious indifference and despair, and in so doing 
he only followed the earlier apologists, as when Ter- 
tuUian exclaimed : ''The testimony of the soul is natur- 
ally Christian!'' Are you not weak? Are you not 
sinful? Does not your heart cry for the living God? 
At one of the meetings of the American Board held in 
Cleveland during the past week (October, 1888), I 
heard a missionary say that the Spirit of God was at 
work in the heathen heart even before they heard of 
the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and he told of a woman 
who, upon receiving the glad tidings for the first time, 
exclaimed : "O, this is the peace for which I have been 
waiting!" That poor heathen woman did not need 
the ''historic evidences of Christianity" to convince 
her. The Holy Spirit had been at work in her heart 
preparing it for the glorious coming of Christ. Oh, 
my brothers, in that sense of dependence, in that feel- 
ing of weakness and need, is the proof that God is 
not far away, your eternal strength and refuge. Your 
heart is not lying to you. Believe, too, that there is 
just such a heart in all other men and women, savage 
or civilized, rich or poor, cultured or ignorant. There 
is the same bodily structure in the new born babe and 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

in the centenarian. Air, food and sleep are needed 
by all. No amount of mental advance lifts any man 
above the weakness which his dependence emphasizes, 
nor above the craving for sympathy when bereavement 
shadows him, nor above the shame and fear which sin 
provokes. 1 do not undervalue the labors of Christian 
scholars for the faith which we profess, but there is 
something more direct than argument. God has His 
eternal witness in every soul, and to that we confidently 
appeal. 



Why Am I a Christian? 

I received my first impressions of religion in a godly 
home, where the Bible was read daily, and where the 
Sabbath was observed as a day of sacred Christian 
opportunity and joy. I caught Christianity from the 
lips and eyes of my mother. An incident in which my 
mother and myself were immediately interested made 
an indelible impression upon me. From that event I 
got a conception of God's methods with His children. 
My mother caught me in her arms, and kneeling down 
with me, prayed that God would pardon me for my 
ofifense. Then she administered chastisement for my 
misconduct. There was love and judgment brought 
in line. It was not love without law, nor law without 
love. In that one act of my mother's affectionate and 
dutiful ministry I received the first theological train- 
ing in my life. In the years that followed, leading up 
to the hour of conversion, that early lesson ex- 
ercised a potent influence. You can all trace the way 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

back to the early training of your childhood, and as 
you reflect, your memory is without even as much as 
a single conscious struggle for the truth of Christian- 
ity. You were helped and succored by the counsels 
of godly fathers and the prayers of pious mothers. 
In the power of home influence there is discoverable 
a duality of testimony as to the Word of God, the 
testimony of Christian life as we have seen it and felt 
it, and the witness of the written Word in the Bible. 
The Bible is but the record of what Christianity has 
done. The witnesses are united. 



The Testimony of John. 

Of all Christ's disciples, he who was named John 
understood Him best. It was fitting that he should 
speak last, when all others had submitted their tes- 
timony, and entered their verdict. In saying this, I 
assume that this fourth gospel was written by John, 
the apostle. This has been vehemently denied, but 
the long and fierce debate may be regarded as virtually 
ended in favor of the traditional judgment. It is con- 
ceded, also, that this gospel is the last of all the New 
Testament writings, composed in the eighth decade 
of the first century. It represents the ripest fruit of 
inspired Christian thought. Fifty years had passed 
since the crucifixion. Paul had been dead twenty 
years. Fifteen years or more had elapsed since the 
destruction of Jerusalem. The days of peace had been 
succeeded by the days of bitter and bloody persecution. 
Through all these years the l)cloved disciple had been 

3 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

meditating on his great theme. Each review disclosed 
a new subHmity, and made his task more difficult We 
may well suppose that he was often urged to write 
his story, and perhaps even rebuked for his strange 
delay. But he was determined not to be premature, 
and his hesitation has been to our great advantage. 
For we have in this Gospel the verdict of a vigorous 
old age, sobered by fifty years of study, tempered by 
a long and varied experience, made fearlessly honest 
in view of the nearness of death. He does not claim 
to give an exhaustive history, but from the wealth 
of his material he selects such deeds and discourses 
as appear to him representative, and as fully justifying 
the universal faith of the Church. The fourth gospel 
is really a great argument in historical form. It mar- 
shals the reasons why men were urged to believe in 
Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, the Author of 
Eternal Life unto all that believe. 



The ]^Iighty Message. 

It was an old conceit that represented Mark as 
giving a human portraiture of Christ; Matthew, as 
emphasizing his royal dignity- ; Luke, as dwelling upon 
his representative and sacrificial mission, and John, as 
tracing His divine origin and nature — a fourfold 
picture of the ilan,, the King, the Sacrifice, and the 
God. John has combined them all, as underneath his 
finished sketch, whose incompleteness he freely con- 
fesses, he writes : This is the man Jesus, who is also 
the Christ, the Anointed King, the Son of God, the 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Eternal Word, and through whose name eternal life 
is secured to them that believe. Behold, he cries, the 
Man, the King of men, the Son of God, dying for 
our sins and rising again for our eternal redemption. 
I know it is a mighty faith, but the soul of man needs 
just such a message as this. For sin and death, judg- 
ment and eternity are words of mighty import. The 
fears that torture the human heart have a terrible grip 
and are loosed only at the touch of an Almighty hand. 
I know that it is a mysterious faith, but no more 
mysterious than life itself, or the conviction of personal 
immortality. The key of the riddle of human life is 
here. The one great mystery of the incarnation and 
atonement makes all else plain and luminous. What a 
flood of light the manger of Bethlehem casts upon the 
dignity and the meaning of human life. Childhood, 
motherhood, toil, suffering have all been transfigured, 
now that the Son of God has woven them all into His 
personal and eternal experience. There is nothing 
degrading in a life which He was not ashamed to share. 
I confess there is at first something repellant in the 
pictures which Russian artists have given us of 
Christ's earthly home. They are too realistic. We 
cannot imagine that He lived in so humble a way. 
But He did, and the lesson is that the hut does not 
measure the man, that the soul is of royal lineage and 
stature, and that time is the gate of eternity. The 
cross shows us what provision God has made that 
we may not fail of our heritage. He was cradled 
among the poor, and died for transgressors that we 
might be robed in white and dwell forever with the 
angels. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

An Unfaltering Faith in God. 

Our God is one — one not only in the essence of His 
being, but one in the perfectness and completeness of 
His character. Is He the God of the Jew only? Let 
that question of Paul's ring out afresh upon the ears 
of men. No; He is also the God of the Gentiles. 
Is He the God of the Anglo-Saxon alone? No; He 
is the God also of them that dwell in China and Japan, 
and in Turkey, and in the recesses of Africa, and in 
the islands of the sea, and He hath included all men 
that He might have mercy upon all. We believe in one 
God, who lays the same law upon every conscience, but 
whose course is sometimes veiled to the understanding, 
but disclosed to the conscience; one God who visits 
every soul of man, who imposes the same conditions 
upon all who seek His favor, which truth Peter uttered 
when he declared in the household of Cornelius that 
they who fear Him and work righteousness are ac- 
cepted of Him. The ills of life can be more bravely 
borne when it is known that there is nothing that 
can separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus 
Christ our Lord, and you can commend the problems 
of the future to Him who moves in mysterious ways 
to accomplish His eternal ends. I do not profess to 
understand the world I live in; the more I study it 
the less I know about it. Indeed, it seems to me terri- 
bly out of joint, and I cannot begin to justify to myself 
the inequalities I discover on the right hand and on the 
left, but I can believe more and more every passing 
year that I am solely in the hands of Him who has 
shown His face in Jesus Christ, and in whom there is 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

no pleasure in the death of another, but who sent His 
Son into the world, not that the world might be con- 
demned, for if that had been the purpose He would 
have simply withheld Himself, but that the world, 
through Him, might be saved. So I see this little 
globe of ours swinging in the atmosphere of the divine 
affection, the divine spirit brooding over all genera- 
tions and over all nations. That is the love on which 
I plant my theology. Perhaps there is a better one; 
if there is, I have never found it. These things be- 
long to Him, and I am sure that He will do what is 
right. As for the rest, we can afford to wait, for God 
is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain. 



Righteousness Essential to Happiness. 

You cannot be happy, try ever so hard, unless you 
are holy, and it is only in the possession of what the 
Bible calls holiness that you can enter into and enjoy 
the sweet communion for which you were made, with 
your Maker. Now, the scientists of our day have 
made us very familiar with the idea of law, that, how- 
ever stern the lines may seem to be, and, however all- 
encompassing they appear, yet they are equally benefi- 
cent. There is no chance; all things in heaven and 
on earth are joined together in the order of an eternal 
reason. That affirmation we carry from nature into 
history, and we are reading and writing the history 
of the race from this angle of observation, that every 
effect has its cause, and that all things are bound to- 
gether in an orderly succession. It is this that makes 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES. 

us impatient of any definition of the supernatural in 
which the natural does not retain its place; it is this 
that makes us unwilling to confess that even a miracle 
is a violation or suspension of the laws of nature ; it 
is this that makes us insist that the higher order which 
is revealed in the miraculous, after all, is in harmony 
with that lower order which is called the natural. 
Even Jesus Christ falls under this law, though He be 
the miracle of history. He was not the product of His 
age, but He fitted into His age and His age fitted into 
Him. We go a step farther and affirm the supremacy 
of the moral law as applying to the character and des- 
tiny of men. We insist that the only beneficent order 
is the order of impartial and inflexible righteousness. 
''Oh,'' you say, ''hell is an awful word," and no man 
should utter it lightly. But I tell you, friends, that the 
universe in which there is no justice is the universe 
in which there is no respect for righteousness, and a 
universe in which men are left to be just what they 
please would be worse than hell, and there is not one 
of you but who will say "Amen" to that. The only 
beneficent order is the order of inflexible righteous- 
ness, and the sooner we come to recognize that fact 
the better. I remember, only a few weeks ago (Aug- 
ust, 1887), seeing a picture in a Paris art gallery that 
impressed me very profoundly. The subject was 
Brutus condemning his son to death. There sat 
Brutus as judge. To his hands was committed the 
order of the state. Before him stood his boy — fair- 
haired, blue-eyed, and hardly more than a child — look- 
ing with pleading eyes upon his father's stern coun- 
tenance. About the lad were gathered his friends in 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

every conceivable attitude of agonizing entreaty. It 
seemed to me that I could read the conflicting emotions 
in the father's face, but Rome was greater than any 
one man, and the order of the state must be maintained. 
Far be it from me to push unduly the logic of analogy, 
but I do think that a great many of the objections 
that are brought against the atonement, against moral 
retribution, vanish on sight of that canvas, and this one 
lesson that the order of righteousness must be inflex- 
ibly maintained is thereby taught. 



God, the Soul, and the Bible. 

Let me ask your attention to the two first great 
primary convictions of our Christian faith — the 
doctrine of God, and the doctrine that the soul has a 
real existence. Bring these two in relation. God seeks 
man and man is made that he must seek God if he 
would be happy. You have prayer on the one hand, 
and the promptings of revelation on the other. Reve- 
lation is the movement of God manward, and prayer 
is the movement of man toward God, and the religion 
that has no revelation in it can have no prayer in it. 
Strike down one and you strike down the other. Of 
this mental gravitation, the gravitation of man towards 
God and the gravitation of God towards man, the 
gravitation is strictest on the part of God, and thus 
you reach the possibility, the probability, and the 
reasonableness of the revelation of God to man, and 
thus lay a broad foundation for that Christian affirma- 
tion that we have in Holy Scripture, which is revela- 

71 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

tion in historic form. With this the inspiration of the 
Bible is perfectly reasonable, and it is one of the 
elements of common universal testimony. I do not say 
that man must have a definite theory of inspiration, 
but that the universal faith of the church agrees in 
this, that in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
ments we have an authoritative disclosure of the mind 
and the will of God. And now, when we come to open 
the Scriptures, what more do we find ? Does it reveal 
to us another element of Christian testimony over and 
above those to which we have already adverted ? What 
is the substance of the prophetic and apostolic testi- 
mony as that testimony is to be found in the Bible? 
Let me answer that question. The beloved disciple 
gives as the answer in that short sentence in which 
he declares that 'The testimony of Jesus is the spirit 
of prophecy." Some people will tell you that they can 
prove almost anything from the Bible. But the Bible 
was not given as an authoritative text-book of all 
possible matters of science and philosophy. Its theme 
is one, and that theme concentrates itself upon the 
personal dignity, and mission, and ministry of the 
Lord Jesus Christ. The testimony of Jesus is the 
spirit of prophecy. Christian doctrine, therefore, deals 
pre-eminently and specifically with what Jesus Christ 
has done, and with what He will do. In other words, 
it affirms especially this fact, that in His person He is 
truly and properly divine, and to this it adds another 
fact, that by His obedience, by His atonement and 
death on the cross, and by His perpetual intercession 
at the right hand of God, He becomes the source of 
energy and of redemption for man. It may be impos- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

sible for any of us to fathom the philosophy of the 
Trinity, but the universal church has always testified 
in all her creeds, in all her prayers, and in all her 
songs, that in Jesus Christ dwells the fullness of the 
Godhead bodily. Let us hold fast to that. The atone- 
ment may be an unfathomable secret to you and me, and 
any statement that you may have heard may not have 
been satisfactory to you, and certainly none that I have 
ever heard laid down has been satisfactory to me, but 
the truth is grander, broader, deeper, and higher than 
any exposition of it that has fallen from the lips of 
man, or that has come from his pen. 



The Principle of Righteousness. 

There can be no permanent peace in society that 
does not build on universal and eternal justice, in 
which manhood, protected by law, supersedes the 
necessity of class legislation, and quietly obliterates 
the prejudices of race and rank; and the best pre- 
scription for much of the shallow and sickly thought 
of our time, in discussions concerning the true social 
order, would be a hearty dose of Cicero. We shall 
never reach settled results until we assume that social 
institutions are not creations or inventions, but living 
growths, and that social justice can deal with classes 
only by dealing with individuals. The administration 
of public righteousness must be personal and impar- 
tial; upon any other basis it is tyranny, by whatever 
name it may be called. The ideals of Plato and of 
Cicero have never yet been fully realized ; but the 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

travail of the ages has been along the lines they have 
traced, and only by the supremacy of a law from 
which ''neither the senate nor the people can give us 
any dispensation/' whose ''seat is the bosom of God/' 
and whose "voice is the harmony of the world/' can 
the happy goal of the future be reached. 

If Greece is the sanctuary of speculative thought, 
and Rome the great school of practical statesmanship, 
England is the foremost representative of the com- 
mercial idea as entering into the life of nations. Her 
energies have been concentrated upon the production 
of wealth. Her economists, following the leadership 
of Adam Smith, have discussed the philosophy of 
trade, the sources of wealth, and the laws of distri- 
bution. The Anglican and the American are known 
throughout the world as worshippers of "the almighty 
dollar." But even the spiritual Plato says that man's 
first need was food, his second a house, and his third 
a coat. If "nine-tenths of life deals with human con- 
duct," a very large part of that conduct is concerned 
with the homely questions of bread, raiment and shel- 
ter. To make these questions predominant and ex- 
clusive is undoubtedly demoralizing and debasing ; but 
to ignore them, or to remand them to a region in which 
righteousness gives no law and imposes no checks, is 
to remand nine-tenths of the human race to the slavery 
of irresponsible and fierce commercial competition. 
There must be a morality of bread-winning, otherwise 
morality is stripped of universal sovereignty; and if 
righteousness cannot bear rule in factories and on 
ships ; if it cannot mediate between capital and labor, we 
might as well burn our Bibles and close our churches. 

74 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES, 

They cannot reserve piety by sacrificing humanity, 
they cannot keep ahve faith in heaven, if the earth is 
to remain a Hving tomb. — Socialism and Christianity. 



Modern Socialism versus Christianity. 

Modern sociahsm affirms that it is the business of 
the state to so regulate industry that no man shall be 
compelled to beg for vv^ork, nor to labor for simply the 
necessaries of subsistence, nor be haunted by the fear 
of future want. It w^ould levy a tax sufficiently heavy 
to make hunger needless, and to sw^eep every hovel 
from the face of the earth, compelling every man 
to w^ork, and guaranteeing him against every form of 
suffering. The socialist affirms that poverty is a 
crime, not of the individual, but of the state ; that pau- 
perism is the artificial and cruel creation of capitalistic 
organization, and with the overthrow of the latter the 
former would disappear. Herbert Spencer regards 
governmental interference as indefensible and unjust; 
the school of Marx demands it as an inherent and 
indefeasible right. The former divests the state of all 
responsibility, the latter places the government in ''loco 
parentis'' to every man. The former would have every 
man bear his own burden, the latter would compel 
somebody else to bear it for him. Christianity com- 
mands us so to bear each other's burden that every 
man shall be able and willing to bear his own. 

But what is pauperism? An invisible life separates 
it from poverty. The latter has been called the great 
industrial crime, the parent of ignorance and vice, the 

75 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

social hell engulfing more victims than pestilence and 
war. And such utterances appear in a pamphlet whose 
title page contains the quotation from ''J^sus, the Car- 
penter's Son'' — ''the foxes have holes, and the birds of 
the air have nests ; but the Son of Man hath not where 
to lay His head." The text does not fit the indictment ; 
one of the two must be surrendered. For the prizes of 
life were within the Nazarene's reach; the path of 
wealth and power was open to Him as to no other born 
of woman. He was deaf to the solicitations of carnal 
ambition. He toiled with His own hands to earn bread 
for himself and His widowed mother, and through His 
exacting public ministry He never ceased to care for 
her. He never asked alms of any one, but encouraged 
His disciples in pursuing their ordinary callings, and 
carefully to husband their united incomes, that they 
might be chargeable to none. There is not an inti- 
mation from His lips warranting the claim that the 
state is any man's industrial debtor. The rapacity of 
the rich is denounced in scathing terms, but the extir- 
pation of poverty does not appear as a part of His mis- 
sion. He summoned to faith in God, who clothes the 
lilies and feeds the sparrows, deprecated the brooding- 
anxiety that gave the foremost place to food and 
raiment, and exhorted men to seek first the kingdom 
of God and His righteousness, to labor not for the 
ment that perisheth, but for the meat which endureth 
unto everlasting life. And as He taught, so acted His 
disciples. After His resurrection they went back to 
their boats and nets. Paul labored with his own hands, 
though he did not refuse occasional gifts from the 
churches whom he had served, and to the idle throng? 

76 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

of his day he said, ''If any would not work, neither 
should he eat,'' commanding all to work with quietness 
and so to eat their own bread. The communion of the 
early church was purely voluntary, and seems to have 
never been transplanted from Jerusalem, where it came 
to a very speedy end, while charity was never urged as 
a righteous claim of the poor. To the lame man at the 
temple gate Peter gave something infinitely better than 
alms, the ability to walk, leap, and earn his own living. 
The elimination of poverty never has been, and is not 
now, one of the Utopian schemes of Christianity; it 
does urge to self-reliance, industry, thrift and con- 
tentment. 

But while Jesus and His disciples were poor men, 
they were not paupers. They did not ask other people 
to support them. They maintained their independence 
and themselves gave alms according to their ability. 
Here is the invisible line that separates pauperism from 
poverty, a line that is also an impassable gulf. The 
pauper and the poor man stand at opposite poles ; the 
whole diameter of manhood stretches between them. 
Pauperism is the state of voluntary want, and must 
be heeded as such. The pauper is really a drone and a 
thief, who wants to live by the industry of others ; 
and from this view the social problem resolves itself 
into this : "What shall we do with the lazy?" And the 
lazy, where are they? Not only in hovels and cellars, 
but in palaces. Not only in rags, but beneath broad- 
cloth and velvet. Every man has the poison of pauper- 
ism in him who wants something for which he has not 
given a fair equivalent, who wants an easy and genteel 
place, with good pay, who asks other hands than his 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

own to clear the path for him. There are paupers in 
ceiled houses, in government offices, in the pulpit. 
Thomas Moore denounced the idleness of princes no 
less than the violence of thieves, and the vagrancy of 
the indolent poor. He discerned in the former one of 
the most potent encouragements of the latter. The 
poison at the head embittered the whole stream; and 
the only remedy was the heroic one of compelling 
every man to work. For so long as wealth is regarded 
as enabling some men to live without productive toil, 
others will study to secure places where the demands 
are least exacting, and others still will be content to 
be always idle so long as they can satisfy their hunger 
and cover their nakedness. It is not the millionaire 
who makes the tramp, but the idleness which the rich 
man encourages in his home reappears in the beggar 
of the street. It is not poverty, but laziness, that calls 
for a war of extermination. — Socialism and Chris- 
tianity. 



Triumph of the Christian Plan. 

The controversies of our time on the subject of 
socialism are new only in their form, and in the grow- 
ing earnestness with which they are conducted; that 
their difficulties may be traced to the deep-seated 
selfishness that controls and deforms human nature; 
that their increasing bitterness is due to the spread 
of intelHgence and the development of conscious man- 
hood among all classes, and that only an industrial and 
social economy, in which manhood as well as mer- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

chandise comes to its rights, can hope to lay the foun- 
dations of the future state. But the regeneration is 
provided for in the principles and precepts, the doctrine 
and the spirit, of Christianity. The discontent of our 
time is hopeful, if only we deal with it wisely. Hu- 
manism has its birth and support of the gospel, and 
every new accession of conscious manhood is a heaven- 
ly baptism, for which we should give thanks. The 
danger is that zeal may outrun knowledge. The en- 
gine, under full pressure of steam, may jump the 
track, and hurl the great train down the embankment. 
Liberty must honor the authority of law. Men cannot 
have what they want simply for the asking. They will 
starve if they do not work. They will not rise unless 
they become intelligent. They will remain poor unless 
they are temperate and thrifty. They will provoke 
resentment and organized retaliation if they become 
unreasonable and despotic in their demands. Fire is 
sometimes fought by fire, and the very strength of a 
party has frequently become the prelude of its disgrace 
and overthrow. Justice is the security of the state and 
the guarantee of victory. And justice, though heaven- 
born, has always tabernacled on earth, and wrought 
among man, and found embodiment in law. Her ban- 
ners do not lead the army of destructive revolution. 
She wins by appeal to reason's ear, and by the policy 
of patient, dignified demand. Let the panting engine 
be firmly kept on the ancient tracks of steel. The 
world's regeneration, in shop, and home, and state, 
is to be sought along the lines of past endeavor, lines 
that are clearly manifest in the Christian Scriptures 
and in Christian history. Capital will not become com- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

munal possession. Private property will not disappear. 
Superior endowments and unflagging industry will 
continue to command exceptional reward. Competi- 
tion will not cease. But these elemental, industrial 
and social forces will come under a higher law, and be 
knit into a compacter and loving partnership. The 
lines of power that now are strained upon the shoul- 
ders of some, and slack upon the necks of others, will 
be gathered up and held with even firmness by the 
palms that bear upon them the print of the nails, wit- 
nessing to His equal love for rich and poor. And 
when He rides in the chariot of the world's industry, 
the days of peace will have come to stay. — Socialism 
and Christianity. 



GNASAPHTHANI ? GNANITHANI ! 
A Paraphrase of the Twenty-second Psalm. 

BY REV. A. J. F. BEHRENDS, D.D. 

My sorrows have been great and sore, 

As years have come and gone; 
But never in the days of yore, 

Had I been left alone. 

One face gleamed through the darkest night, 

To cheer me on my way; 
One voice smote with its secret might, 

The battle's fierce array. 

It came at last, the dark, dread hour, 

When God did hide His face, 
While hell arrayed its hostile power, 

My shame in blood to trace. 

A scoffing and a scorn was L 

Alike to friend and foe; 
The mocking lip, the lifted eye. 

The bitter hate did show. 

80 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

With hungry haste the lion nears, 

Scenting afar his prey, 
Riddled with arrows, torn by spears, 

I, panting, helpless, lay. 

My lips were parched, my heart stood still, 

Despair my vitals froze; 
The heavens above, with icy chill. 

Looked down upon my woes. 

Save me, O God, my God, I cried, 

Recede Thou not from me; 
Draw near, O hasten to my side, 

Thou art my only plea. 

Holy art Thou, and I am vile. 

But Thou art Israel's praise. 
Though Satan rage and men revile 

Eternal is Thy grace. 

Through the Red Sea, 'neath Horeb's fire. 

Thou didst Thy people lead; 
O crush Thou not my heart's desire, 

As in the dust I plead. 

The brazen serpent Thou didst rear. 

And they who looked did live ; 
O, quiet Thou Thy servant's fear, 

Send me Thy glad reprieve. 

I've counted all Thy mercies, Lord, 

Engraved on history's page; 
My heart is trusting in Thy Word, 

Check Thou the lion's rage. 

Show me Thy face ! then let Thy sword 

Upon the suppliant fall ; 
For naught affrights my soul, O Lord, 

When I can hear Thy call. 

He answers not. His lips are dumb. 

His face I cannot see; 
My breath recedes, my hands are numb, 

Lama Gnasaphthani? 

Eli! Lama Gnasaphthani? 

Where are Thou, O my God? 
Forsaken ? No, it cannot be ! 

I drive away the thought. 

8i 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Gnanithani ! What do I hear? 

]\Iy pulses leap and bound, 
]\Iy prayer is heard, laid all my fears, 

The voice of hate is drowned. 

For when God speaks a holy calm 

Broods over all the earth, 
"While stars and seas join in the psalm 

To which his smile gives birth. 

Hallel ! Hallel ! Praise ye the Lord ! 

And celebrate His name ! 
I trusted in His holy word. 

Nor was I brought to shame. 

His heart doth hear. His oath is sure, 

The orphan's cry He heeds ; 
He spreads His banquet for the poor, 

With finest wheat He feeds. 

To all the world will I proclaim 

His glorious faithfulness, 
And summon all who know His name 

To serve, adore, and bless. 

The kingdoms of the earth are His, 

The nations great and small ; 
His loving hands my lips shall kiss, 

O crown Him Lord of all ! 

— Brooklyn Eagle, May 5, 1889. 



PARAPHRASE OF PSALM XVL 

BY REV. A. J. F. BEHRENDS, D.D. 

Eternal God, I hide in Thee, 

]\Iy sovereign and my song ! 
I look to Thee, alone to Thee, 

Amid the hostile throng. 

The princes of the earth are they, 
Thy grace in sainthood keeps ; 

And when they fold their hands to pray, 
]\Iy heart with rapture leaps. 

82 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

I will not join with them who stand, 

Neath shrines of lust and blood ; 
Their names my lips shall never brand, 

Thou most holy God ! 

My heritage art Thou, O Lord, 

And Thou my daily bread; 
Though Satan should unsheathe his sword, 

1 sing, and know no dread. 

The hand which hollowed out the seas 

And gave the lands their form. 
Hath given to me a realm of peace. 

Of sunshine without storm. 

A land of gardens and of flowers. 

Where Spring immortal reigns. 
With palaces and leafy bowers. 

Whose like no monarch gains. 

When I need counsel. Thou art near. 

Though slumber hold mine eyes ; 
My steadfast heart can know no fear. 

Though hosts against me rise. 

Merry am I, my heart doth leap ! 

I lay my body down. 
For Thou, O Lord, my soul dost keep, 

Though death upon me frown. 

Each morning brings me glad release. 

And I go forth refreshed : 
Through Sheol, too, my path is peace, 

I am forever blest. 

I cannot see the way, O Lord, 

The shadows are too deep, 
But I have heard Thy promise, Lord, 

The oath which Thou wilt keep. 

The day will come when I shall see, 

Thy glory face to face. 
Where everlasting pleasures be, 

And hearts o'erflow with praise. 

83 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 
PARAPHRASE OF PSALM XIX. 

BY REV. A. J. F. BEHRENDS, D.D. 

The heavens declare Thy glory, Lord, 

And earth joins in the strain; 
Each morning smites the golden chord, 

Night echoes the refrain. 

Speech there is none, the lips are mute. 

In this great choral song; 
Yet round the earth with silver flute, 

Moves on the endless throng. 

Arcturus sings, the Pleiades 

With sevenfold harmony, 
Orion's deep-toned melodies 

Enrich the symphony. 

In dazzling robes the Sun comes forth. 

With hand on harp of fire, 
While from the South, and from the North, 

Their cymbals strike the choir. 

Over the arched firmament 

Their path of triumph lies ; 
And whereso'er their steps are bent, 

The sable monarch flies. 

On mountain top, 'mid snow and rain. 

The sunbeams dance and play ; 
And when they kiss the sheeted plain, 

The frostwork melts away. 

Pastures are robed in living green. 
Spangled and fringed with flowers; 

The hills reflect the golden sheen, 
Joy reigns in all earth's bowers. 

A resurrection glory rests 

On Esdraelon's vales : 
And distant Hermon's many crests 

Are fanned by summer gales. 

Thy law is like the Sun, O Lord, 

It bringeth light and life; 
Great strength Thy promises afford. 

And wisdom for the strife. 

84 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 



Pure are Thy statutes, clean Thy fear, 

Enlightening the eyes ; 
Transfiguring each silent tear, 

For him who to Thee flies. 

The finest gold from Ophir's mines. 

And pearls from ocean's bed, 
Compare not with the gracious lines 

In which Thy truth is read. 

The sweetness sipped from lilies fair, 

Or drawn from Sharon's rose. 
Seems bitter when the peace I share 

Which from Thy statutes flows. 

Nor do the thunders from Thy voice 

Affright my listening ears ; 
Thy judgments make my heart rejoice. 

And keep mine eyes from tears. 

Righteous art Thou, I give Thee praise ! 

For Gilead's balm is Thine ! 
The stain of sin Thou can'st erase, 

And cause my face to shine. 

Preserve my lips and keep my heart 

From all transgression free; 
Thy grace, O Lord, to me impart, 

For I would holy be. 

My Rock art Thou, my Fortress strong. 

My ever watchful friend ! 
From danger guard, keep me from wrong, 

Thy servant, Lord, defend. 



SING TO THE HEART OF JESUS. 
Translated from the German. 

BY REV. A. J. F. BEHRENDS^ D.D. 

Sing to the Heart of Jesus, 
O heart of mine, in love, 
And let the joyful anthem 
Pierce all the clouds above. 

With praise and benediction, 

Now and on every shore, 
?Iail to the Lleart of Jesus 
The holiest evermore! 

85 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

O Heart, in anguish broken, 

For me, from love divine, 
By point of spear pierced sorely. 

Thro' this great guilt of mine. — Ref. 

O Heart, so gently streaming 

With water and with blood, 
How from Thy Cross, uplifted, 

Grace rushes like a flood ! — Ref. 

O Heart, in purest fire flames, 

Consumed by love divine, 
All things to me are granted, 

In that dear Name of Thine ! — Ref. 

O Jesu-Heart, one prayer 

On earth I breathe to Thee : 
Keep in its secret shrine, Lord, 

A little place for me ! — Ref. 

True, I am very sinful, 

A Iamb, soon lea astray: 
But, lo ! I let Thee find me, 

Good Shepherd, be my Way ! — Ref. 

cleanse my soul and spirit 

In Thy Heart's precious blood ; 
Then, as Thy bride, elect me, 
O Thou, my highest good. — Ref. 

As Thy great heart was gentle, 

Holy, and without pride; 
So be my heart, in likeness. 

To Thine, dear Lord, allied! — Ref. 

Begone all vain ambitions. 
The world's consuming fires; 

1 will love only Jesus, 

To Him my heart aspires.— Ref. 

Oh ! who'll give me the dove wings, 

Plumed for that Heart divine? 
I'd soar o'er mount and valley, 

To make that refuge mine. — Ref. 

Thy wounds, Heart-Jesu, draw me. 

For rest to them I fly; 
And thence, in weal and anguish. 

To all the world I cry: — Ref. 

86 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

And when my eyes are breaking, 

When sun and stars decline; 
Dying, my lips shall whisper, 

O Jesu-Heart, I'm Thine ! — Ref. 



LORD, FM TRUSTING. 

Translated from the German. 

BY REV. A. J. F. BEHRENDS, D.D. 

Lord, I'm trusting, 
Lord, I'm hoping, 
Lord, I love Thee from my heart ! 
Speak, O Lord, Thy servant heareth. 
Guard me from the world's deceit. 
For Thou art my friend and keeper. 
Throned upon the mercy seat. 
In my trusting. 
In my hoping. 
In my loving. 
Strengthen me. 

Lord, I'm trusting. 
Lord, I'm hoping. 
Lord, I love Thee from my heart ! 
Should all men forsake and leave me, 
Thou wilt not deceive me. Lord, 
Naught, O Lord, is hidden from Thee, 
Perfect peace Thy words afford. 
In my trusting, etc. 

Lord, I'm trusting, 
Lord, I'm hoping, 
Lord, I love Thee from my heart ! 
One true God in persons threefold. 
Who in light unclouded dwell, 
Same in essence, power endurance. 
All Thy works Thy wonders tell. 
In my trusting, etc. 

Lord, I'm trusting. 
Lord, I'm hoping, 
Lord, I love Thee from my heart ! 
Father, in the heights celestial, 
Upon Thee I fix my heart; 
Should all men and devils hate me. 
Thou from me wilt never part. 

In ni}' trusting, etc. 

87 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 



Lord, I'm trusting, 
Lord, I'm hoping, 

Lord, I love Thee from my heart ! 

Son of God ! Thy cross and passion, 

Save me from eternal death; 

By Thee are the heavens opened, 

Thee I praise with joyful breath. 
In my trusting, etc. 

Lord, I'm trusting, 
Lord, I'm hoping, 
Lord, I love Thee from my heart ! 
Holy Spirit ! let me never 
Feel the kindling blush of shame, 
]Make me bold the faith to honor, 
And to bear the Christian name. 

In my trusting, etc. 

Lord, I'm trusting, 
Lord, I'm hoping. 

Lord, I love Thee from my heart ! 

Thou shalt be my only treasure, 

Thou shalt be my only joy; 

And the task which Thou approvest. 

Shall in love my hands employ. 

In my trusting, etc. 

Lord, I'm trusting. 
Lord, I'm hoping. 
Lord, I love Thee from my heart ! 
Naught from Thee shall separate me. 
Though the world its firebrands wave, 
Thus to force me to deny Thee, 
I will sing while yawns the grave. 
In my trusting, etc. 

Lord, I'm trusting. 
Lord, I'm hoping. 
Lord, I love Thee from my heart ! 
When my breath grows faint and feeble, 
And I'm numbered with the dead. 
Graven on my heart forever. 
Radiant, shall these words be read : 
In my trusting, etc. 



88 



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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Introduction to Birdseye Views of the Bible. 

Our traditional estimate of the Bible, as a book 
standing by itself and apart, often places the reader 
at a certain disadvantage. It creates an intellectual 
prepossession that prevents a natural and free hand- 
ling, and in this way its mightiest charm is lost. Its 
voices sound hollow and distant, when they are really 
living and near. The Bible is as really the product 
of human conviction and experience as it is of Divine 
inspiration. It is no less from man than it is from 
God. I propose, in the present series, to approach 
the Bible from its human side. All I shall assume is 
its historical genuineness. I shall not deal with critical 
questions. I shall not enter upon minute interpre- 
tation. I shall take each book by itself, read it care- 
fully in its historical setting, and inquire for the main 
impressions which the author had in mind, and which 
he intended to convey; and in so doing, I am sure 
that we shall learn the lesson which God intended to 
teach. We begin with Genesis, the Book of Origins. 
It contains fifty chapters, and an unsurpassed wealth 
of material. But the material is not loosely put to- 
gether. I know of no compacter writing ; thirty-seven 
pages covering a period of nearly twenty-four hundred 
years. The book falls into two divisions. The first 
comprises eleven chapters, extending from Adam to 
the Call of Abraham, a period of over two thousand 
years ; the second comprises thirty-seven chapters, 
extending from the Call of Abraham to the death of 
Joseph, a period of nearly three hundred years. The 
Call of Al)raham is the point on which the book swings. 

89 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

It is the history of a single family with which the 
greater part of the book deals, and all that precedes 
the twelfth chapter is really of the nature of a preface. 
In this preface there is a studied and deliberate brevity. 
It gives a rapid account of the Creation, of the Fall, 
of the Deluge, and of the Dispersion at Babel. And 
of this compact story the salient features are the unity 
and holiness of God, the dignity and freedom of man, 
the nature and awful consequences of sin, the right- 
eousness and mercy of God's moral rule. These are 
the great intrinsic evidences of its truthfulness. But 
how could Moses have known these things? The 
genealogical tables supply the answ^er. From these 
it appears that Adam lived to see the eighth generation 
of his descendants, overlapping the birth of Methu- 
selah 243 years, and that of Lamech 56 years. To all 
these generations Adam had communicated the facts 
with which he was conversant. Methuselah lived until 
the very year of the Flood, overlapping the birth of 
Noah 600 years. After the Flood, Noah lived three 
hundred and fifty years, dying only two years before 
Abraham was born. Methuselah, Noah, Terah, these 
are the three links by which Adam and Abraham are 
joined, and through whom the primitive traditions 
were carried over a period of nearly 2,100 years. And 
with the time of Abraham we are in the period of 
written documents, to which Moses must have had 
access. But it is with the Call of Abraham that the 
real history of Genesis begins. Abraham is the hero 
throughout; and to understand him is to pierce the 
secret of this book. Simple, strong faith in God, whom 
he obeys without hesitation, is the dominant trait of his 

90 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

character. In Jacob we come to the tragic chapter 
in the history of this wonderful family. And when 
you read the life of Joseph, it seems almost as if the 
innocence of Eden had been restored. Surely, to have 
had such a grandson as Joseph must have been re- 
ward enough for Abraham's exile. Abraham preaches 
faith ; Isaac preaches patience ; Jacob preaches the 
necessity and the aim of moral discipline, that piety and 
purity may not be severed; and Joseph preaches the 
beauty of holiness, and the honors that await the 
righteous. 



Missionary Philosophy. 

The Gospel is ours in trust for the world, and our 
passion for its dissemination must be world-wide. It 
is for the world what the Nile is to Egypt. That land 
was once a garden. It is now a comparative desert. 
What has made the change? Neglect of irrigation. 
The Nile is as friendly as ever; but miles of canals 
have been abandoned and fallen into neglect. The 
Gospel is a river of life. Its banks are the Christian 
nations. When you plant a mission at Bethseda, 
among the freedmen, on the Pacific Coast, in China 
or in Africa, you are digging a canal through which 
the healing stream begins to flow. We must keep in 
repair all that we have, and we must dig many more 
until the whole earth shall be covered with a network 
of them. Then shall the wilderness blossom with roses 
and echo with the voice of gladness. This is the first 
and the final, as it is the conclusive argument for mis- 
sionary devotion. I do not say foreign missions as 

91 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

distinguished from home missions, for in the last 
analysis it is all home missions. ''The world is my 
parish/' cried John Wesley. Commerce exacts tribute 
from every clime, and there is not a day that passes 
over your head when the whole world does not con- 
tribute to your comfort and security. The round earth 
is every man's home. And so I might reverse my plea 
and lay siege to your thought at the gate of self-love. 
You can accumulate only by giving away, by intrusting 
to other hands what you have. You grow poor by 
hoarding. Astronomers tell us that Orion responds 
to every pulse-beat. The universe is one, and the 
pebble at your feet would be shattered should the 
planet above you break forth from its moorings. There 
must be order everywhere, if there is to be order any- 
where. A murder in Whitechapel alarms the world's 
metropolis, and sends a thrill of horror through all 
lands. You cannot have pandemonium in one ward 
and paradise in all the others. The entire city must 
be under control. Municipalities and states touch 
each other, and nations must act in concert to preserve 
the peace of the world and maintain their own safety. 
You may keep the Chinaman out if you like, by legis- 
lative enactment ; but if you think that 300,000,000 
of Mongolians, a fair specimen of whose race you have 
probably never seen, are to be kept from the world's 
council chamber, you are to be pitied. If the moral- 
ity of the Occident cannot make its way into the 
Orient and subdue it, then the life of the Orient will 
swamp the morality of the Occident. The battle must 
be fought. I confess that I am not wholly unselfish in 
my zeal for missions. My own redemption tarries 

92 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

until the whole earth shall have been won for Christ. 
That day may be hastened or hindered, and I want it 
hastened. I am anxious for the crown and the rest; 
but I must wait for the final and eternal award until 
the last stronghold of paganism shall have been cap- 
tured. Therefore do I want to do my part, and I want 
you to do yours. Therefore am I anxious that we shall 
not lag behind the Providence of God, but occupy 
every post that we can command. Of the issue I have 
no doubt. The tide of the world's battle turned when 
the stone rolled away from Joseph's sepulcher. The 
risen Christ hurled Satan from his seat of power. It 
is a broken army whose columns we are pursuing, and 
what we need is to push the pursuit vigorously, giving 
the enemy no chance to recover his breath. It might 
be said that the churches are doing all they can. There 
are heroism and generous giving. But they are the 
exception. Of the 4,404 Congregational Churches in 
the country, less than 1,500 gave $25 each last year 
to the American Board; 1,000 gave only $50 each, and 
less than 750 gave $100 each. Surely there is room 
for improvement (October, 1888). But I can reach 
only you. Have you done what you could? Cannot 
you increase your gift 30 per cent, for Christ and the 
world's sake? Let me say, too, that the modest gift 
has the promise of a blessing and the pledge of power. 
The pennies of the children, the dollar of the working 
man, the check of the rich, are all needed. They will 
not quarrel on the plate. They clasp hands in the 
bank. They will go together on their mission of heal- 
ing to the ends of the earth. Do what you can ; pray 
as you give, and give as you pray. 

93 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

[Instead of the 30 per cent, increase as suggested 
by Dr. Behrends, the congregation responded at the 
rate of an increase of 300 per cent.] 



How TO Study the Bible. 

The noble minded man is, first of all, open to con- 
viction. He does not assume to be omniscient. He 
does not claim infallibility. He is willing to learn 
from any one, and is ready to deal fairly with any 
new doctrine. But while he holds the scale with 
impartial hands, he has his weights, by reference to 
which his judgments are determined. He has his 
tests by which he distinguishes the true metal from 
its imitations. He does not bankrupt himself at every 
adventurer's bidding. There are things in regard to 
which he refuses to be drawn into debate. He is sure 
of them; and by them he tests the novelties that he 
is asked to believe. To act on any other principle 
would make all progress in knowledge impossible, and 
introduce the reign of an eternal moral chaos. Is not 
that the way in which we proceed in science and 
invention ? The toilers in these departments constitute 
a guild, building on each other's achievements, care- 
fully preserving and guarding each slightest advance. 
There is a vast amount of old-fashioned thought that 
we consolidate into our submarine cables, and into 
our bridges of steel. The new is evermore dovetailed 
into the old. It is only common sense as applied to 
religion to follow the same rule. God has at no time 
left Himself without witness. His character and the 

94 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

principles of His government are not a modern dis- 
covery. Even where the Bible has not been known 
the stars have lighted the way to His throne and 
conscience has interpreted His judgments. The tragic 
poetry of Greece is full of the soundest orthodoxy. 
On this bedrock of natural religion the Bible builds, 
assuming the existence, the omnipotence, the holiness 
of God, the spirituality and immortality of the human 
soul and the universal reign of moral law. And 
though there be two sections in the Christian's Bible, 
separated by four hundred years, they are as insepar- 
able as are the trunk and the roots of a tree. The 
Bereans were right. They were open to conviction, 
but they had a Bible in their hands, and even Paul 
must prove that his new and startling message about 
a Risen Christ harmonized with the older revelation. 
And so they searched the Scriptures daily, bringing 
to their task both patience and critical sagacity. 
They avoided both superficiality and hastiness. The 
question is still a perplexing one to many readers. 
Shall I read my Bible as a Divine or as a human book ? 
Is the doctrine of its inspiration a preliminary as- 
sumption for its right interpretation ? To this we may 
reply that even on the most extreme conceivable 
theory, that of inspiration by verbal dictation, the 
thought of God is expressed in human language, in 
words that have a definite grammatical, historical and 
national stamp, and only through these words can the 
creative and inspired thought be reached. For us there 
is no alternative ; we must pass from the human to 
the Divine. Our intuitions and our spiritual eleva- 
tions will not relieve us from the drudgery of using 

95 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

our grammars and lexicons. We must use our ham- 
mers with skill if we want to get the sweet, unbroken 
kernel. We ignore prepositions and conjunctions, 
and cases and moods, and tenses and idioms at our 
peril. There is no kind of painstaking labor from 
which we can be excused in the study of the Bible, 
which we do not think of avoiding when we read 
Aristotle, or Goethe, or Shakespeare. So that the 
question involves nothing practical for the work of 
the interpreter ; the exact meaning of the human words 
is the portal, for us, to the exact thought of God. 



The Name of Jehovah. 

That single word, Jehovah, on David's lips, was a 
compact, historical argument. It was as if he had said 
to every despondent heart: ''God has proved Himself 
faithful to His covenant for a thousand years. Why 
cannot you trust Him for threescore years and ten?" 

Now, that name to-day means a great deal more 
than it ever did. Its significance is increasing all the 
time. Around that thought of Jehovah there gathers 
to-day the additional testimony of three thousand 
years. For it was not a speculative, an unknown and 
hidden God before whom this old Hebrew stood when 
he said: ''Be dumb before Jehovah." But it was the 
incarnate God; that is to say, the Deity embodied in 
all the history of a millennium. You and I have four 
millenniums instead of one, by which to secure sup- 
port of our faith and inspiration, to our patience and 
hope. For four thousand years God has vindicated 

96 



I 




First Baptist Church, Cleveland, Ohio 
(Dr. Behrends' Second Pastorate) 



n 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Himself in His character as Jehovah, a covenant-keep- 
ing God. You know how, after David's time, Israel 
seemed to be in danger of being ground to powder 
between the millstones of Eastern and Western ag- 
gression. You know how it was only the voice of 
prophecy that kept alive hope in the hearts of a 
despised and captive people. You know how at last 
the fierce legions of Rome trampled Jerusalem into dust ; 
but not until the foundations of a greater and more 
imposing commonwealth had been laid in all the great 
cities of the Roman Empire. You and I must add the 
triumphs of the Gospel through these eighteen cen- 
turies to the associations which clustered around that 
ancient name in the thought of every pious Israelite; 
and on that account the historical argument is, for us, 
all the more impressive. We may say, ''If God has 
been faithful to His pledges for four thousand years, 
why cannot you trust Him for threescore years and 
ten?'' Behold, how marvelous His ways have been! 
Think of it ! Nearly six hundred years intervened be- 
tween the promise that God made to Abraham, 'This 
land I will give unto thee to be thine heritage forever," 
and the day when Israel, with flying banners, and 
marching behind the ark of Jehovah, forded the Jor- 
dan, and the walls of Jericho fell ! How many times 
their hearts must have been despondent ! But a thou- 
sand years in the sight of God are but as one day, and 
one day as a thousand years. This is the great argu- 
ment, compacted into this single word : ''Be mute 
before Jehovah." It is not an unintelligent silence. 
It is a silence which grows out of a vision that is 
broad and deep; out of a faith that feels itself stand- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

ing upon foundations that cannot be removed. I 
need hardly remind you with what satisfaction your 
pastor has traced this great argument in showing 
that the divine origin of Christianity is indicated by 
its historical effects. This is one of the great Christian 
evidences, ever growing in emphasis and force: for 
every added century does but make more impressive 
this great argument of God's incessant and continuous 
fidehty. 



The Spirit is Willing But the Flesh is Weak. 

No contrast can be greater than that between Geth- 
semane and the upper room where Jesus celebrated 
the last Passover with His disciples. In the chamber 
He had spoken of His death with radiant face and 
ringing words, and in His prayer had brought the 
heavens near; in the garden His soul is troubled to 
its secret depths, and He shrinks from the cup of 
suffering. It was only human. This is the law of all 
strong emotion — from laughter to tears and from 
tears to laughter. You will recall Luther's entry into 
Worms, defiant and strong, and the sleepless night 
given to agonizing prayer before the immortal defense 
on the succeeding day. All wondered at the calmness 
of the monk of Wittenberg. They did not know that 
he had fought the battle on his knees. Even so does 
the agony of the garden lie between the glory of the 
upper chamber and the holy calm in Pilate's hall. 
We see a similar reaction, though on a much lower 
plane, in the disciples. From sundown until midnight 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

these men had endured the severest mental and emo- 
tional strain. The entire week had been full of ex- 
citement — the entry into Jerusalem, the cleansing of 
the temple, the debate with the Scribes, the treachery 
of Judas. Their sleep had been broken and scanty. 
There is no record of what was said or done during 
the walk from the city to the Garden of Gethsemane. 
The streets were deserted, and I can see the eleven 
with their Master walking in silence. The midnight 
is coming upon His spirit. Never was He so wide 
awake, though He could sleep in a rocking and half 
submerged boat. He withdraws to pray. But no 
sooner does His face vanish among the olive trees 
than the exhausted body exacts its rights from those 
who have been left to watch. Even Peter and John 
sleep. They were not heartless ; they were simply 
tired; and though waked once, they could not keep 
their heavy eyes open. I cannot blame them, for 
Christ did not, leaving them undisturbed when He 
came to them the second time. It made Him sad to 
find that they could not watch with Him one hour ; 
He saw and pointed out the peril to which their weak- 
ness exposed them, and urged the necessity of vigil- 
ance and prayer; but the tones of His voice must 
have been full of gentleness when He spoke to them 
as the unwilling victims of bodily infirmity. They 
meant to watch. They slept in spite of themselves. 

The exhortation to watch and pray emphasizes the 
danger of yielding too readily to the ease which the 
body craves. The apology recognizes the fact that 
the body does impose limitations which no ardor of 
the soul can surmount. We are not to permit the 

99 
LofC. 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

body to have its way, and we are not to fret because 
we cannot transcend the limits which it imposes upon 
our energy. A very large part of our practical piety 
has to do with the proper control of the body. It 
can become your tyrant, and you can make it your 
ready and needful servant. Paul frequently speaks 
of the Christian as an athlete running a race, engaged 
in a wrestling match. Such a man, he reminds us, is 
temperate in all things, keeping his body under. The 
contrast between the spirit and the flesh enters into 
the framework of the great apostle's thought, and 
while by the flesh he frequently means the whole man 
under the power of sin, there lies back of this repre- 
sentation the idea of the body as the sphere within 
w^hich sin most easily assaults the spirit. We know 
that this is true. Drunkenness, gluttony, lust, indo- 
lence are the vices most widespread and destructive. 
There are subtler sins, such as selfishness, arrogance 
and pride, together in fiber and more difficult of con- 
quest, but the sins of the body lie near at hand. Their 
general form is that of indolence — letting the body 
have its way, with no care for higher interests, and 
no regard for the future. That is the essence of bar- 
barism, and there is a good deal of truth in the saying 
that laziness is the original sin under whose curse 
the race has fallen. 

It has surprised us sometimes how men of vigorous 
frame accomplish so little and how men of splendid 
physical energy achieve so much and live so long. 
The secret is in the mastery which the will secures 
over the body ; and to that extent there is truth in the 
mind cure idea. There comes a time when it is better 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

for a man to jump out of bed and throw the medicines 
out of the window. A resolute will breaks the force 
of many a slight ailment, and turns the scale in more 
serious disease. No man can afford to ignore the 
fact that the body is a drowsy giant who must be 
always under the lash. The dead line is reached when 
you throw away the whip. I find it harder every year 
to gird myself for work with the pen, and the temp- 
tation grows to take things easy; but I mount the 
saddle, dig in the spurs, until the blood leaps, and then 
I drop my bridle in the swift and exhilarating race. 
The body only waits to be crowded, but crowd it you 
must, or its lethargy will drag you down. 

You are busy men. You work at high pressure, and 
the world will not let you do anything else. But your 
plans are always larger than your achievement, and 
the harder you work the more there is to do. The 
spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. You are lovers 
of your kind. The public good lies near your heart. 
The sins and the miseries of the world oppress you. 
If you could only have your way the earth would be 
a paradise at once. The spirit in you is willing. The 
prayer is on your lips : ^'Thy kingdom come.'' You 
mean it. You do all you can, perhaps, to hasten its 
advent. But the flesh is weak. You are not master of 
the situation. You cannot bring others to your way 
of thinking. You must bear with evils which you 
hate. The saloon makes you shudder when you think 
of its infamous history and deadly ruin, but you 
cannot close its door. The Sabbath desecration pains 
you, l)ut you cannot stop it. Your heart bleeds when 
you think of the world of suffering, but you cannot 

lOI 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

lift the burden. You do what you can, but your 
hands are tied, and your means are Hmited. The flesh 
is weak. All this is as true of me as it is of you. 
Every day makes me more conscious of the limitations 
which the body imposes. There is so much that I want 
to do for you and the thousands in this city that words 
of praise shame me, and I have no heart to review 
the past. I feel as if all my work were broken and 
partial, and the wonder to me is that anything remains. 
I have my ideal, but I am further from it to-day than 
I ever was. I long to know you as members of a 
household know each other. I would know your 
griefs and your joys, and bring close to you the min- 
istry of courage and patience. I cannot seek you out ; 
will you not come to me, or send for me when you 
think that I can do you good? I am not here to win 
applause ; I am here to speak the great Master's words 
and to make life sweeter for you all. There's not one 
of you, from the youngest to the oldest, in whose 
present and eternal welfare I am not deeply interested. 
It is enough for me to look into your eyes, and I pray 
for you. 



The Nineteenth Psalm. 

There is an abrupt transition in this psalm at the 
seventh verse, which has led some to suppose that 
the fragments of two poems were joined together 
by some unknown editor, and then credited to David. 
Ewald's theory is that the first six verses are a "splen- 
did but unfinish fragment of the time of David, to 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

which a later poet added the section in which the 
Law is praised/' This is a specimen of the arbitrary 
methods in which the so-called ''Higher Criticism'' 
indulges, and which discredit its claims to cautious 
and conservative minds. The unity of a poem is not 
destroyed by a change in the meter, nor by a transition 
from description to doctrine, and that is all we have 
here. The first six verses are lyrical, the next five 
are didactic, and the concluding three are devotional. 
It might as well be said that the psalm is composed 
of these fragments. Nor can I accept the more gen- 
eral view that two separate topics are treated in the 
psalm, as if the first part was devoted to the revelation 
which God makes of Himself in nature, while the 
second part sets over against this His revelation in 
His word: the bond of literary unity being that of 
contrast. It seems to me that there is a much simpler 
view. I am not willing to suspect an author, much 
less an inspired author, of looseness, in his unfolding 
thought, unless the evidence be very much stronger 
than that which this psalm supplies. 

The theme of the psalm is the Law of God, as con- 
tained in promise and precept, enlightening, enriching 
and defending the soul. In six crisp sentences its 
glory is described, and these are followed by four 
others, dwelling with loving eagerness upon the com- 
pleteness with which it provides for man's present 
and prospective needs. This is the heart of the psalm, 
l)cginning with the seventh and ending with the 
eleventh verse. If I may call this psalm a temple I 
should say that these verses are the main building. 
Leading up to it is a broad flight of steps and a double 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

row of magnificent columns, as in the Aladeliene at 
Paris. The great theme is approached by an impres- 
sive introduction in the opening stanza of six verses. 
And this building is crowned by a great dome, or a 
lofty spire, whose lines blend and are lost in the open 
air, as befits a house of prayer. The great theme pro- 
vokes to self-examination and confession, and is 
crowned with a plea that leads the soul into the pres- 
ence of Him whose glory the heavens declare. The 
theme has its fitting preface and conclusion ; the psalm 
thus naturally falling into these clearly related 
divisions. 

And first as to the introduction. It is the greatness 
of God, from whom the law proceeds, that it is here 
celebrated. It is more than descriptive poetry, of 
which there are many specimens in ancient and modern 
literature, in which the charms of nature are recounted. 
The psalmist writes in a loftier strain. All this beauty 
of heaven and earth has a voice, and it is this music 
that fills him with wonder and delight. He tells us 
that what he hears is not imaginary : "The heavens 
declare the glory of God, and the firmament brings 
to light the work of His hands;'' brings to light as 
genius is disclosed in a statue, or a cathedral, or a 
book. Nor is it merely here and there that nature 
makes known the greatness and the glory of its Maker. 
The revelation is universal, continuous, copious. 
Every day pours forth the story, as full streams flow 
from inexhaustible sources ; and night is represented 
as breathing knowledge, imparting it freely and with- 
out stint. True, there is no speech, and there are no 
words. No lips are seen to move, no articulate sen- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

tences are heard. Yet no oratory is so penetrating 
nor reaches so far. This hne goes out into all the 
earth, and their unspoken words are heard in all the 
habitable world. It is a beautiful picture. The Hne 
is the string of a lyre or harp, and so comes to stand 
for the sound which the harp emits when its strings 
are swept by the hand. Nature is a harp, whose vi- 
brating tones reach to the earth's boundaries, over 
mountains and seas, into desert and cave, through all 
the heights and all the depths, and wherever men go 
to build their homes they hear the sweet and famiHar 
music. And that music is the glory of God. His 
power. His wisdom. His unchanging goodness. These 
home voices precede and follow us ; make populous 
and radiant the bleakest solitude. Never are you 
alone ; never need you lack for inspiring and profitable 
companionship. Conspicuous among this great com- 
pany of singers and teachers is the Sun, who, as their 
chief, never wearies in proclaiming the greatness and 
glory of God. Every morning he flings aside the 
curtains of darkness radiant and refreshed. He is 
eager for the race. He leaps upon the path like a man 
of might, who does not know what to do with his 
•superabundant strength. He takes no rest. He does 
not so much as stop to take breath in making the vast 
'Circuit from dawn to dawn, and with each daybreak 
he answers the call. Nothing is hidden from his 
heat. The mists scatter, the clouds melt away, the 
mountain tops grow bare, the rivers break their icy 
fetters, the birds wake, the Summer hastens, the 
harvests grow golden. We may judge the Maker by 
»this single specimen of His handJivork. If the Sun 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

is so unwearied, so prompt and rapid, so mighty, per- 
vasive and beneficent, what must He be who made 
the Sun ? This is the undertone ; God is never weary. 
His resources are abundant. He moves with rapid 
and strong step, and nothing can resist His power, 
an energy which enUghtens and enriches. Thus the 
Sun suggests the very perfections of God which His 
word brings into clearer prominence, and on which 
faith reposes. 

The introduction brings us to the theme. No 
paraphrase of this part of the psalm is better known 
and more justly entitled to praise than the stanzas of 
Joseph Addison, which I cannot refrain from reading 
here: 

''The spacious firmament on high, 
And all the blue ethereal sky," etc. 

\Mien David wrote this psalm there was no science 
worthy of the name. There was no geography, no 
geology, no astronomy. To us the universe is infinitely 
more complicated, vast and wonderful than he knew 
it to be, and our conception of the creative and sup- 
porting power of God ought to be proportionately 
clearer and more impressive. It is sometimes said that 
science is atheistic, that law and evolution have elimi- 
nated the idea of God. I do not believe it. On the 
contrary, every advance in science has deepened the 
spirit of reverence by disclosing the wonderful unity 
and unbroken order of the universe, and science is 
rapidly making it impossible for any thoughtful man 
to be an atheist in philosophy. Pierce the words, law 
and evolution, to the core, and you find that they 

1 06 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

assume an eternal, almighty, ordering intelligence. 
We have mounted the steps, we have passed the 
threshhold. 

We come now to the shrine where God speaks to 
man, and we find that His utterance is worthy of Him, 
and adapted to ourselves. It is just what we might 
expect of Him, and it is just what we need. Here 
we have the supreme test of a Divine revelation. It 
is not miracle. It is not historical evidence. It is the 
intrinsic excellence of what is declared, and the power 
of that word upon the hearing soul. That line of 
thought is three thousand years old. From the knowl- 
edge which David had gained by an attentive study 
of himself, and of the world in which he lived, he 
turned to the study of the Law — the Bible in his 
hands, and he exhausts his vocabulary in describing 
its excellence, and its salutary efifects. It is pure, as 
incapable of improvement as is the sunbeam ; it is 
perfect, all its parts thoroughly consistent ; it is sure, 
an eternal Amen, dealing only with indispensable 
truth ; it is clean, enduring forever. The purest gold 
in unlimited abundance, cannot so enrich the soul. 
The dropping of honeycombs is not so sweet. There is 
safety in the admonition of the Divine precepts ; there 
is great reward in their observance. You see the 
tribute is two-fold, from examination and from ex- 
perience; just as there are two ways in which you 
can test the value of a gold coin, by its ring on the 
table and by its use in exchange. Read your Bible 
attentively; mark the things in it that commend them- 
selves to you, alike in promise and precept, and then 
put them to the test in practical obedience. It is a 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

simple and a sensible test, and a month's honest trial 
would kill the strongest scepticism, and change indif- 
ference into enthusiasm. When you stand on the 
summit of a mountain, or pace the deck of a great 
steamship in mid-ocean, you feel your insignificance 
and weakness. So, face to face with the greatness 
of God, in power, wisdom, holiness, and love, the 
psalmist is startled by his own ignorance and moral 
imperfection. He dares not trust his own judgment. 
The approval of conscience is good, but he does not 
rest in that. God is the only infallible judge and 
therefore he is anxious that God shall pronounce him 
innocent. Strength of will is good, nay, indispensable, 
in resisting temptation, but that does not make him 
invulnerable and infallibly secure ; and therefore he 
asks God to keep him. 

These are the three things in his earnest prayer : His 
inmost heart is set upon being holy in God's sight. He 
pleads for the Divine forgiveness, and he implores the 
continued almighty protection of God. He holds fast 
to God and asks Him never to permit him to w^ander 
from His side. So intent is he on having the Divine 
approval, that he wants not only his spoken words, 
but the murmur of his heart to be acceptable to God, 
whom he addresses as his Rock, unmoved and immov- 
able, and as his Redeemer, his God, his kinsman and 
defender, who is pledged to maintain his cause against 
all enemies. 

It is a great thing to have God's approval of our 
conduct. It is a greater thing to have God's approval 
of all we say, kept from all hastiness and bitterness 
of speech. But the greatest thing is to have a heart 

io8 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

that never vibrates to a false note, whose lowest mur- 
mur makes the face of God smile with loving approval. 
Ah, that prayer cuts deep ! It leaves no room for self- 
complacency. But the peace that endures forever, and 
the joy that is unspeakable and unclouded come only 
with a purity in which the murmur of the heart 
answers the holiness of God. That is the redemption 
we need ; none other can satisfy us ; and the promise 
of God in Jesus Christ pledges its ultimate and eternal 
possession to every penitent and trusting heart. 



A Call for Church Unity. 

I believe there is a constant, steady and quiet pres- 
sure toward the elimination of the bounds of antagon- 
ism between denominational bodies. I have looked 
at this matter closely for fifteen years (December 21, 
1888), and I think I judge the tendency aright. I 
will not live to see the differences obHterated — I don't 
want them obliterated if they represent principle, con- 
science. There can be no true fusion except on in- 
tellectual conviction. I believe, nevertheless, we have 
passed the point when divisions will go on increasing. 
I do not look for any more denominations. The pres- 
sure will go on until Christianity will crystallize into a 
few great booms. That sort of fusion is likely to 
continue. I would not be surprised to see the Presby- 
terians and Congregationalists falling into line soon. 
The differences that separate us are petty — they don't 
amount to anything. The love of the Master is the 
main fact, and on that we are agreed. 

109 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES, 

The National Covenant with the Negro. 

The Emancipation Proclamation was a solemn na- 
tional vow, for whose faithful performance God will 
hold us to strict account. The Constitutional amend- 
ments are part of the organic law of the nation. They 
must be obeyed from Maine to Louisiana. The sooner 
that is plainly said and perfectly understood the better. 
There will be no peace until the nation keeps its compact 
sealed in blood. The cry of social equality has nothing 
to do with the matter. The nation has nothing to do 
with that. It is political equality upon which we must 
insist — a free ballot and an honest count. Gentlemen, 
the corruption of the franchise is the gravest danger 
of the hour. Bribery at the North, and intimidation 
at the South, must be frowned down and extirpated 
by the strong hand of the law, or the Man of Destiny 
will plant his feet, under cover of the popular demand, 
upon this Western Continent. When I am told that 
we are forcing a race conflict by preaching political 
equality, I answer that this is the only way of avoiding 
it. Intimidation and oppression will heat the coldest 
blood. The negro has the spelling book and you can- 
not tear it out of his hand. He has tasted liberty, and 
he will not go back to the hoe cake of slavery. He 
is patiently waiting for justice and he has waited long; 
but he will not wait forever. The only way in which a 
race conflict can be avoided is by keeping our prom- 
ises, by dotting the South with school houses, by 
developing and fostering a varied industry, by stimu- 
lating intelligence, thrift and Christian morality; and 
in this work the white men and women of the South 

IIO 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

should be foremost. All honor to that noble band, 
in those States, who respond to this view of the prob- 
lem. Let us strengthen their hands and cheer their 
hearts, and let us hope that the Republican party will 
wisely and bravely solve that problem, until the 
shackles of prejudice and passion shall be smitten by 
the hands of reason and law, as the chains of slavery 
melted in the fire of war. — [Address at Union League 
Club, February 13, 1889.] 



Studying the Bible. 

There are two practical methods open to busy men. 
In the first place, Christianity has been in the world 
for more than eighteen hundred years. It may fairly 
claim to be a respectable institution. It has never 
secreted the documents of its faith. It has had an 
intelligent and virtuous constituency. It cannot be 
supposed to have been founded upon deception, and 
to have been maintained by fraud. The record it has 
made counts for something, for the tree is known by 
its fruit. 

In the second place, common sense would suggest 
that the excellencies of the Bible should not be thrown 
overboard on the plea of difficulties or defects. To 
use Coleridge's illustration, would any sane man decry 
the Parthenon because here and there he had found 
a flaw in the material? To say, as Coleridge does, that 
the Bible is inspired only so far as it finds us may not 
be the best theology, but it suggests a very practical 
way of dealing with the Bible. If any one should 

III 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

ofifer you ten tons of quartz, would you reject the gift 
because it contained only ten per cent, of gold? And 
would you deem it a waste of labor and beneath your 
dignity to smelt the entire mass for the sake of the 
precious portion? No, you would get every grain of 
gold out of that heap. Deal with your Bible in the 
same way. There are things in it that perhaps seem 
to you extravagant and puerile. You do not know 
what to make of Jonah and the whale. Does that 
affect the Ten Commandments? Does that destroy 
the value of the Book of Psalms ? Does that make the 
Sermon on the Mount worthless? Does that detract 
from the matchless life of Christ? Go with the most 
advanced critics, multiply the flaws and the faults as 
you like, and it still remains that there is more gold 
in this one book than in all the literature of the world 
beside. Hold fast to that and shape your conduct by 
it. I have Christ's authority for saying that you are 
not required to do more than this, and His assurance, 
also, that by following this simple method the diffi- 
culties will diminish as you proceed in your reverent 
study. Let Coleridge give his testimony on this matter, 
than whom no man ever handled the Bible more freely : 
'This I believe by my own dear experience, that the 
more tranquilly an inquirer takes up the Bible as he 
would any other holy or ancient writings, the livelier 
and steadier will be his impressions of its superiority 
to all other books, till at length all other books, and 
all other knowledge, will be valuable in his eyes in 
proportion as they help him to a better understanding 
of the Bible. Difficulty after difficulty has been over- 
come from the time that I began to study the Scrip- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

tures with free and unboding spirit, the difficulties that 
still remain being so few and insignificant, in my own 
estimation, that I have less personal interest in the 
question than many of those who will most dogmati- 
cally condemn me for presuming to make a question of 
it/' That confession I can most heartily indorse, for 
I have found many a paragraph luminous with instruc- 
tion when read in the light of its simple historical 
setting, and many a book to become radiant when 
allowed to tell its own story. For practical life, too, 
the principle emphasized by our Lord has its supreme 
value. 



The Name of God. 

In the mirror of history David read the vocation 
of man, and the mind of God as righteous and true, 
as long suffering and gracious, as able and willing to 
save. How much more clearly you and I should read 
and ponder that great lesson. David had a single 
page ; we have a library at our command. We expect 
from our candidates for the ministry some knowledge 
of what is called Church History, the conflicts and 
triumphs of Christianity through the last eighteen 
hundred years. It is a history full of thrilling chap- 
ters, of wonderful preparations and deliverances, of 
steady and beneficent advance. We have three thou- 
sand years more to teach us than had David. And 
what is the burden of these thirty centuries? That 
freedom is man's prerogative, that intelligence is his 
glory, that righteousness is almighty and sovereign, 

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THE CHRIST OF NIXETEEN CENTURIES 

that man is marching with steady feet toward his 
dehverance from every form of bondage. And man 
is doing all this, because such is the election of God 
in his behalf, because an invisible guide beckons him, 
because a secret voice inspires him with courage and 
hope, because an invisible arm supports and defends 
him. 

Across the centuries, leaping from mountain top 
to mountain top, echoing through all the valleys, 
bounding over all the seas, heard in palaces and 
prisons, the terror of the wicked and the comfort of 
the oppressed, sound the trumpet tones of righteous- 
ness and peace. And yet men live but threescore years 
and ten, and with each twoscore years a generation 
passes away. By what and by whom are individual 
men linked together? By what and by whom are 
generations locked ? By what and by whom are hostile 
races and nations welded into partnership? By what 
and by whom are the centuries made to keep step? 
Who beats the drum ? History is more than humane ; 
for man is under the dominion of a selfishness which, 
if left unchecked, would plunge the world into hope- 
less anarchy. History is divine and discloses the 
excellency of God's name, who makes the wrath of 
man to praise Him, and overthrows the conspiracies of 
the wicked; who is true, and righteous, and patient, 
and full of thoughts of blessing. With tenfold em- 
phasis may we exclaim : ''Trust in God, O, ye saints, 
at all times, and do not turn into folly.'' For God is 
the universal and infallible Judge, and they that obey 
His voice shall have abundant cause to praise the 
excellency of His name. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

The World for Christ. 

It was with great difficulty that the church came to 
grasp the thought that there must be a conquest of the 
whole world for Christ before He should come into 
glory. She did not dream of worldly empire until 
Rome fell before the Goth and the bishop was invested 
with political influence. The conversion of Constan- 
tine suggested a new policy and gave a new outlook. 
Missionary enthusiasm rose to the highest point. The 
cross was planted in France, Germany and England. 
Europe became nominally Christian, and in the cru- 
sades the crescent was to be driven from Constanti- 
nople and Jerusalem. The motive was a good one : the 
means used to secure it were bad. The world was to 
be conquered by the sword, not by the Gospel of Christ. 
The bishops were to become princes, and the Pope 
universal emperor. Luther shattered the plan. Men 
came to see that this plan of empire was not of God, 
and that the conquest of the world must be by moral 
forces and for righteousness. By the foolishness of 
preaching men are to be saved, and nations to be 
reformed, and the earth to be made a paradise. It is 
a project of overwhelming magnitude. It requires 
heroic faith and unlimited patience. To many good 
men, even in our day, it seems chimerical and unwar- 
ranted, either by Scripture, or reason, or history. 
With scores and hundreds of devoted men the mission 
of the Church appears to be the saving of individual 
souls, not the regeneration of human society ; and the 
old longing beats in many a heart — the advent of 
Christ to end the present conflict. But what saith He 

IIS 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

who sitteth on the throne? Hear it, my brethren: 
''Behold, I make all things new!" Not ''will make," 
but "make;" not the future, but the present tense. 
He is doing it now. The regenerating influences are 
at work; just as the Summer night works in the 
sheeted earth and through the leafless forests. The 
undying, victorious life is throbbing in the pulses of 
history. Old things are everyw^here passing away ; all 
things are becoming new ; and the point of departure is 
that first glorious Easter morning. The power that 
rent the grave has come to stay, and it will redeem the 
world. The Church of Christ is called to empire by 
the preaching of the Gospel. What an enlargement 
this gives to your work and mine, and what an argu- 
ment it is to patience and endurance. We preach and 
teach, we plant churches and schools, not simply that 
men may be prepared for death and heaven, but 
equipped for intelligent service and for aggressive 
work, until every community shall be made radiant 
in the garments of Christian holiness. All things are 
to be made new. The process is going on under our 
own eyes, and we may have a part in it. 

I summon you on this glad day to send the light 
of this Gospel into all the earth, into all climes, and to 
all races. Send it into China, into Japan, into India, 
into Africa. Send it, with all possible speed, into every 
corner of the American republic, into new lands that 
are opening to eager emigrants, into the older regions 
just waking from the slumber of a century, into the 
great plains, where a newly emancipated race is just 
beginning to become conscious of the responsibilities 
of manhood and citizenship. The push of Christian 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

civilization has been toward the setting sun: from 
Jerusalem to Corinth, to Rome, to London, to the 
North American Continent, and from the Golden Gate 
it must leap into Japan and China, until the magic 
circle is completed and Jerusalem welcomes her long- 
discarded prophet. 

This plan of campaign involves two things, aggres- 
sive advance, and consolidation of resources. We 
must throw out our picket lines, seizing the strategic 
points, gaining a foothold in every land, while the 
main army steadily advances to complete the conquest 
and to guard against reverses. No enemies must be 
left to create mutiny and to foster the spirit of rebel- 
lion. Nations must be thoroughly Christianized as 
well as individuals ; welded into common sympathies 
and aims. Much remains to be done in that direction 
in our own country. The North and the South must 
become one by the diffusion of intelligence, by the 
elimination of race prejudice, by the power of religion 
that shall master the judgment and mold the character. 
Foreign missions are in the hands of the Church filled 
with gifts for all the w^orld; home missions are the 
muscles of the arm by which the hands are moved. 
We must make the muscles of our American Christian- 
ity strong and supple, moving in obedience to a com- 
mon will, if we are to do the best for the world. Every 
intelligent observer knows that we are still in our 
formative period. Twenty-four hours carry you from 
one type of civilization to another. New England and 
Western North Carolina are centuries apart. Massa- 
chusetts and Mississippi seem to have little in common. 

it; 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

The better day is coming, and there are three things 
that are hastening it : the railroad, the school and the 
Church. 



The Law of Work Interpreted. 

Life has never been a play. The law of work has 
always been exacting. It has always been hard to 
make both ends meet. Sickness and death have 
shrouded every age. But granting even that matters 
have been steadily going from bad to worse, granting 
that the past embodies all that is excellent, how can 
that be any help to me? When a man is caught in 
the whirlpool, it is poor comfort to shout to him that 
a mile above the stream is perfectly smooth. When 
a ship is helplessly tossing in the storm and rapidly 
filling with water, how much good would it do to tell 
the passengers that yesterday the ocean was radiant and 
calm ? Go to work at the pumps. Keep your tongues 
still and your hands busy. That is the sharp advice 
you vv^ould give. The time of danger is not the hour 
for speculation and sighing. This is the temper of the 
ancient and anonymous preacher when he says, "Say 
not thou. What is the cause that the former days were 
better than these? For thou dost not inquire wisely 
concerning this.'' He answers the question as our 
Lord replied to the disciples when they asked, "Are 
there few that be saved?'' In plain English the an- 
swer is this : "That is none of your business ; do the 
best you can to save your own soul and to help your 
fellow-men." I think this man had found out that the 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

debate between optimism and pessimism is one that 
can never be settled ; the conclusion would not furnish 
us one iota of relief. For if the world is getting better 
it is only because heroic men and women, under God's 
blessing, are uprooting its evils ; and if the world is 
growing worse every day, it relieves no true man from 
the duty of holding his ground as long as he can. 
If the devil is retreating, it is because the bayonets 
are gleaming in his face ; if he is advancing, every inch 
of his progress must be stubbornly resisted. In any 
case, cowardice and inaction are inexcusable and crimi- 
nal. ''Face to the front and to the foe,'' is the order 
that sweeps along the lines. Now that the Centennial 
celebrations are over (May 5, 1889), it may be well 
for us to heed this sober advice. The law of reaction is 
always at work in periods of great excitement. The 
shout of the many provokes the sigh of the few, and 
the few are not altogether in the wrong, however 
their silence and reserve may annoy us. Our eulogy is 
apt to become extravagant, and the dead are clothed 
with virtues which they never possessed, and credited 
with a sagacity which did not belong to them. When 
we come to know them better, we find that they were 
men of like passions with ourselves, that they builded 
better than they knew, and that the secret of their 
greatness was an incorruptible devotion to present 
duty. And so it happens that when eulogy transcends 
its sober bounds, the contrast between the past and 
the present is sharpened, and some turn the tribute 
of praise into a scathing indictment of the present. 
The shadows are always deepest where the light is 
most intense. The gleam of the electric arc above 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

traces every twig and leaf of tree in sharpest outline 
and deepest black upon the sidewalk. The pessimistic 
philosophy ignores the fact of Divine providence and 
the kingship of Jesus Christ. There is a Divine order 
in human history, and that order is never broken. 
God's thought moves on with resistless might and in 
ever widening circles. And that thought is one of 
Redemption. The burdens are to be lifted. The 
shackles are to fall. The oppressed are to go free. As 
our City's motto has it: ''Right makes might." There 
may be a Bull Run at the beginning, but there will be 
an Appomattox at the end. And what a jubilee that 
will be when the Incarnate Son of God leads His 
blood-washed and triumphant army through the 
golden streets of the New Jerusalem. 



Christ's Life not a Dream. 

In the case of Christ, the conclusion of the First 
Century is the conclusion of the Nineteenth. That 
First Century was marked for the intellectual activity 
of its Christian communities. Within thirty-five years 
the whole of the New Testament had been produced. 
The facts of Christ's life had been collated. His teach- 
ings had been weighed and compared with those of 
the Old Testament. His character and mission had 
been analyzed, and in his old age John sums up the 
universal judgment that the son of Mary was none 
other than the Son of God, the only begotten of the 
Father, the Eternal Word made Flesh. The force 
of that conviction may be measured when we remem- 

1 20 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

ber that the first heresies called in question the reality 
of Christ's humanity, but not of His deity. The evi- 
dence of His Godhead was so overwhelming in that 
early time that men found it difficult to believe in His 
manhood. The doctrine of the incarnation was not 
the invention of a later time. It was not of legendary 
growth, but entered into the primitive apostolic creed, 
and it has ever since remained the great fundamental 
confession of Christian believers. There are many 
doctrinal questions on which I am not disposed to 
catechise applicants for church fellowship. But there 
is one point on which I am always anxious to secure 
the plainest evidence and confession, that Jesus Christ 
rose from the dead and is God over all, and that He 
is entitled to the same honor and worship with the 
Father. Take away the God-man and Christianity 
crumbles into a mass of hopeless ruins. And yet, this 
is an amazing affirmation, the most awful blasphemy 
if it be not strictly true, and one which no man should 
make without clear knowledge of the grounds on 
which it rests. Now, we affirm it, because the New 
Testament plainly teaches it. 

But how did the writers of the New Testament 
reach their conviction? Must we depend simply upon 
their testimony, or can we examine the original evi- 
dence by whose study their faith was produced ? Here 
it is instructive to discover that they have not only 
registered the conclusion, but have shown us how they 
reached it. John tells us how he and others became 
convinced that He who was born in Bethlehem and 
crucified on Calvary was none other than the Eternal 
and Only Son of God. They beheld His glory "full 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

of grace and truth." The clause is interpretive. The 
Divine glory in Christ was revealed in the fact that 
He was full of grace and full of truth, that absolute 
veracity and absolute unselfishness constituted the 
basic and dominant qualities of His character. Their 
attention was fixed upon what He was, and not pri- 
marily upon what He said or did. They were im- 
pressed by His miracles ; they were more impressed by 
His teachings ; they were most impressed by His 
personal character, by His singular truthfulness and 
self-forgetfulness. Now, this moral uniqueness and 
pre-eminence of Christ is as potent to-day as it ever 
was. Public thought in our day has become intolerant 
of any language reflecting in the slightest degree upon 
the personal integrity and purity of Christ. The 
church finds many severe critics, the Bible is handled 
without gloves and freely discredited in part, but no 
man who values his reputation for honesty ventures 
to cast reproach upon Christ. The public would turn 
their backs upon such a man as they would hiss any 
one who should traduce George Washington. And 
for the very same reason, that history has rendered 
its verdict. Theories of imposture, of enthusiasm, of 
political ambition, have had their day. They have been 
discredited and discarded. The last word in the long 
debate has been spoken, and there is none bold enough 
to call in question the unblemished personal character 
and the unselfish devotion of the prophet of Nazareth. 
But you will say, granting all this, how does this 
concession conduct to the startling conclusion that 
this man was God manifest in the flesh? By a very 
brief and direct path. If Jesus Christ was full of truth 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

He could not have been self-deceived, and He could 
not have made false claims. If we believe in Him, we 
must also believe Him. And if He was full of grace, 
thoroughly unselfish in His temper, He cannot be 
suspected of having been ambitious to secure a recog- 
nition to which He was not entitled. There is only 
one way of evading the force of his personal testimony 
as to who and what He was, without impeaching His 
personal integrity, and that is by discrediting the 
gospels by maintaining that they are romances, not 
histories; that the words of Christ therein reported 
are words which later writers have attributed to Him, 
and not such as He actually uttered. But the idea 
utterly breaks down when it is remembered that the 
gospels were written under the full blaze of a genera- 
tion that was familiar with the facts. 



The Doubting Apostle. 

Thomas has passed into Christian history as the 
doubting apostle. His scepticism concerning the 
resurrection of Christ has produced and perpetuated 
an unfavorable judgment of his character. We know 
very little of him, but there are three brief references 
to him in the fourth gospel which show him to have 
been a man of sincere intentions, of strong attach- 
ments, disposed to look at the dark side of things, and 
extremely slow and cautious in his mental processes. 
When Jesus, having predicted His impending death, 
answered the call from the bereaved household at 
Bethany, Thomas said : ''Let us also go, that we die 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEX CENTURIES 

with Him." This was the language of determination 
and despondency. \Mien, on the night of His betrayal, 
and after the institution of the Holy Supper, our Lord 
said to His disciples, ''Whither I go, ye know ; and the 
way ye know," Thomas answered: ''Lord, we know 
not whither thou goest, and how can we know the 
way?" His perplexity was profound. He could un- 
derstand neither Christ's object nor His method; 
neither what He had in mind, nor how He proposed to 
secure it. And when not only death came, but death 
by crucifixion, Thomas was completely dazed. It 
was all dark to him. He brooded in solitude. He kept 
away from his former associates. He paid no atten- 
tion to the reports of the women. The testimony of the 
ten he dismissed as incredible. What ! Had not the 
side of Christ's body been pierced by the soldier's 
spear, water and blood flowing from the wound, prov- 
ing beyond all possible doubt that the heart had been 
reached by the deadly thrust? The ^Master was dead, 
and he, for one, would not believe that He had risen 
unless he could touch the nail-prints and lay his hand 
in the mortal gash. Bitterly had he been disappointed, 
and he would not permit himself to be deceived again, 
and cherish a wild delusion. 



Christ's IMethod with Thomas. 

Our Lord's treatment of Thomas shows that He 
appreciated his honest perplexity, and that He did not 
regard his hesitation as wilful and wicked obstinacy. 
There was an honest soul and an ardent heart within 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

this man whom it was so hard to convince. Convinced 
he was, and Augustine rightly interpreted the scene 
when he said : ''Thomas doubted in order that we may 
not doubt;'' that is, his prompt and joyful assent makes 
it certain that the resurrection of Christ is not a fancy, 
but a fact. He performed a most valuable service 
at a critical time. Had he been quietly ignored, or held 
up to reprobation as obstinate and discourteous, we 
should find it extremely hard to accept what he had 
refused to believe. It is a stupendous fact which we 
are summoned to believe, which every Easter brings 
to the front, which every Christian Sabbath com- 
memorates ; and it is well for us to review the historical 
evidence upon which it rests. 



The Fact of the Resurrection. 

Whatever may be true of other features of Christian- 
ity, the primary evidence that Christ rose from the 
dead must be similar to that which warrants our believ- 
ing in the voyage of the Mayflower, and the settlement 
of the Plymouth Colony. 

Now, the first thing to be considered is the fact 
that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not a recent 
invention. It can be traced back more than 1800 years. 
It lies like a belt of light across many centuries. It 
survived the destruction of Jerusalem and the fall of 
Rome. It ruled through all the ages of mediaeval an- 
archy. It was carved upon the tombs, wrought into 
creeds, embodied in song, chiseled and built into the 
cathedrals. It has been incessantly challenged, but has 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

refused to succumb. It has been the faith of the Greek, 
the Roman, the Celt, the Goth, the Slav, the Saxon. 
There is something wonderful in this pertinacity of 
conviction, maintained simply by an appeal to evi- 
dences, in the face of the fiercest criticism among the 
most advanced races. The path of these centuries 
is crowded with the ruins of empires, of ambitions, 
of philosophies, of wierd experiments, of fanciful ad- 
ventures. But with every Easter the great church 
of God, merging all its minor differences of creed and 
ritual, rises in her might and proclaims with joyful 
assurance her unshaken faith in her Risen Lord. Is 
it all a dream? Then, why has it not long since been 
dissipated and discredited ? Can you point to a single 
instance where delusion has not speedily collapsed 
under exposure? Who cares now for the false De- 
cretals? Who believes in the Maelstrom? Who 
troubles himself about witchcraft? But we still stand 
on the open grave with uncovered head and exultant 
heart. Eliminate physical miracle and you cannot 
get rid of this historical miracle — this deathless vitality 
of our stupendous confession. 

Remember, too, that the origin of this faith requires 
explanation. It is not enough to deny it. Possession 
is nine points in the law, and though a hundred men 
should call in question your right to live in your house, 
you would shut the door upon them, the burden of 
proof. They must invalidate your title, and the evi- 
dence must be conclusive. Christianity is in posses- 
sion, and he who denies its central testimony must 
show how and by whom the falsehood was originated. 
There is no longer any doubt that from the very first 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Christians believed that Christ had risen from the 
dead, and that this was the prime article of their faith. 
How came they to believe it? Pliny's letter to Trojan 
shows conclusively that by the year loo the Lord's day 
was widely observed ; songs and prayers were offered 
to Christ as God, and the communion was celebrated, 
while the pagan temples were deserted; while the 
matter was serious enough to lead to a correspondence 
between the Governor and the Emperor. And of those 
whom Pliny had examined, some had been Christians 
for twenty years. Against that rock every mythical 
and legendary theory has been shattered. It is an 
unheard of thing. Would it be easy to create such a 
faith to-day? Would you believe the story of Abra- 
ham Lincoln's resurrection? And can you imagine 
that such a report would continue to be believed for a 
single generation ? But the fact is undeniable that the 
Christians of the First Century did believe in the resur- 
rection of Jesus, maintaining their testimony against 
all the world, and compelling, at least, the homage of 
the proudest court that ever ruled Europe. Nor is 
this all. 

We are on confessedly historical ground when we 
pass from Pliny to Paul, when we read Galatians, 
Romans and Corinthians. The first of these epistles 
was written in the year 52, and the second chapter 
contains the plain statement that more than fourteen 
years had elapsed since the author had become a 
Christian convert. This brings us to the year 38, 
within half a dozen years of Christ's death. Not only 
are these epistles full of declarations that Jesus rose 
from the dead, but Paul makes that fact the coqier 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

stone of his preaching, and shows that it was infallibly 
attested and universally believed. You know Paul's 
lineage, his educational advantage, his early prom- 
inence, his burning zeal in persecuting the church. 
The critics confess that they do not know what to 
make of him ; that his conversion is incapable of ''psy- 
chological explanation." It is incredible that he should 
have been deluded or deliberately given credence to 
what he knew to be a lie. That he was familiar with 
all the facts, had carefully examined all the available 
evidence, and had acted under the impulse of an irre- 
sistible conviction of its truth, is plain from the open- 
ing verses of the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians, 
The man bears the stamp of a high order of intelli- 
gence. His character is beyond reproach, and his 
public ministry is the embodiment of unwearied activity 
and of unselfish devotion. It will be hard to make men 
believe that he lived and died the victim of an awful 
delusion. 



Vigilance Indispensable to ^Ioral Safety. 

Vigilance is indispensable to moral safety. No 
doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, no theory 
that regeneration carries with it the infallible certainty 
of final and eternal blessedness, should be permitted 
to blind us to this solemn truth. So long as our 
mortal life endures, and for aught I know, forever, 
we must take heed to our steps; for whatever added 
security the future may bring, it can never encourage 
inattention and carelessness. You know the differ- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

ence between walking in the open light of day and 
in the midnight gloom, or with bandaged eyes. The 
blind are easily tripped. The darkness bewilders vou. 
And what eyes and light are to the feet, vigilance is to 
moral safety. But whom, or what, shall I watch? 
There was only one antagonist whom Paul feared, 
and upon whom he fixed his vigilant eye — himself. 
He was afraid of nothing else. He was not afraid of 
God, nor of the devil, nor of men. He felt that the 
sources of moral danger were in himself, not outside 
of him ; and the mastery of that lesson is of the utmost 
importance. Toward God, the only rational attitude 
is that of unqualified and habitual confidence. No 
shadow of doubt rests upon the unspeakable love of 
Christ. Paul's deepest persuasion was that not even 
''any other creature'' or ''creation" could separate him 
from the love of God. This is the bedrock of truth. 
Upon this the pillars of eternal government rest. No 
tremor comes to this foundation. You need not watch 
God. Trust Him. He seeks only your good, and 
the good of all men. That assurance makes luminous 
and radiant every page of the Bible; and I am free 
to say that so clearly fibered upon my mental life is 
this conviction, that if you could persuade me that the 
Scriptures limit this infinite love for men by a decree 
of unconditional election, I would throw my Bible 
into the sea. But God loves the world, and that 
weaves a crown of light around every infant brow. 
God is to be fearlessly and joyfully trusted. I have 
little interest in the debate about a continued proba- 
tion, because I am sure that the Father of all souls 
will deal gently and impartially with each. God is 

129 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

the object of trust, not of vigilance. Shall we watch 
the devil? Some tell us that there is no such being; 
that the word Satan does not represent a personal evil 
spirit, but is the personification of evil. Paul believed 
in a personal devil, and so do I. But the time spent 
in watching the devil is worse than wasted. The best 
thing to do is to ignore him; for the pierced hand of 
Christ has broken the scepter of Satanic power, and 
hurled the prince of darkness from his throne. 

Nor are our fellowmen the proper subjects of that 
vigilance which is enjoined. We are too much given, 
I fear, to watching our neighbors, for purposes either 
of criticism or of imitation. We judge men by what 
appears upon the surface, and nothing is easier than 
the cultivation of a misanthropic temper. Our vigil- 
ance makes us suspicious, until we are in danger of 
regarding all men as rogues and unworthy of gen- 
erous confidence. But how scanty is our knowledge 
of man at the best. Did we but understand their in- 
tentions, their ungrained infirmities, the terrific fight 
which they have with their surroundings, the bur- 
dens which crush and embitter them, we would often 
pity and pray where we are tempted to condemn and 
curse. It is better and much more reasonable to sus- 
pend judgment, to be slow to anger, and reserved in 
speech, to think as well of our neighbors as we can, 
counting all to be for us who are not openly against 
us. And surely the vigilance which makes the judg- 
ment of another the rule of conduct is the badge of 
moral slavery and the surrender of moral independ- 
ence. In a recent debate on hypnotism, which is only 
a new name for mesmerism, there was universal agree- 

130 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

ment that they who permitted themselves to be ex- 
perimented upon suffered serious and certain injury, 
physical and mental, resulting in degeneracy of nerv- 
ous tissue and in the loss of will power. Thirty years 
ago, in my early college days, I took that ground 
among my classmates, and was laughed at. But I 
held then, and I hold now, that the man who surren- 
ders himself, body and soul, to another's will, abdi- 
cates his manhood, and commits moral suicide. God 
alone has the right to rule you, and to prescribe the 
rule of 3^our conduct. Your safety lies in exclusive 
loyalty to Him, in seeking His guidance, and His 
alone. When a great and grave crisis confronts you, 
it is best to court solitude. Abraham did this when 
he was commanded to leave Chaldea, and again when 
he was ordered to sacrifice Isaac. Moses did this when 
he spent forty days on Mount Sinai. Our Lord did 
this when he retired into the wilderness. Paul did 
this when he sought refuge in Arabia. Live face to 
face with your own conscience in the light of God. 
It is rarely that a thoroughly honest man will be 
mistaken in his moral perceptions and decisions, and 
I would give more for an hour's sincere and earnest 
cross-questioning of self than for a year of parlia- 
mentary debate. And so I come back to this, that 
the only proper object of vigilance is yourself. There 
is nothing else to be afraid of. The sources of moral 
danger are in you, not outside of you. 



Christian Unity. 
At the services for the installation of the Rev. James 
M. Farrar, D.D., as pastor of the First Reformed 
Church in Brooklyn, the Rev. A. J. F. Behrends, 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

D.D., preached the sermon (Thursday evening, Sep- 
tember 26, 1890), his text being Ephesians iii: 15 and 
16. Here is a portion of the discourse: 

I know not how it may be with others, but this 
I do know, that with myself, as the years pass, such 
utterances as this in the Bible, which outline the 
duties of the followers of Christ, impress me more 
and more powerfully and pathetically. Perhaps the 
reason of this is to be found in my own religious 
history, which was peculiar. My father was a German 
and a minister of the Lutheran Church. My mother 
had the purest of Dutch blood in her veins, and I 
myself was born in Holland. I was baptized at the 
hands of a Dutch minister, and was carefully trained 
in the Heidelberg catechism. As was the custom in 
the Lutheran Church, at 14 years of age I was con- 
firmed. However, I was a Christian only in mental 
conviction. My head was in alliance with the teach- 
ings of the Holy Scriptures, but my heart had not 
been touched. It was thirty years ago, but I remem- 
ber distinctly the conversation that occurred between 
my father and myself relative to my entering the 
ministry. My father desired that I should become 
a minister of the gospel, even as he was himself, and 
he asked me to acquaint him with my decision to 
study for that profession as early as I could. After 
weeks of thoughtful meditation, I cannot say prayer- 
ful, I told him that I had to decline to accede to his 
wishes. On being asked why, I remember that I 
replied that it was my conviction that an aspirant for 
the ministry should be quite sure that the spirit of 
God calls him to devote himself specially to that pur- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

pose. He made no answer, nor even ever again 
reverted to the subject. 

When I left home and was thrown upon my own 
resources I had no love in my heart for my God, 
though I scrupulously kept the Sabbath, though I 
avoided and resisted the temptations that beset youth 
away from the restraints of home, and though I never 
ceased to bend my knee before my bed, and say the 
prayer that my then already sainted mother had taught 
me. It was a Methodist circuit rider, in one of the 
Southern States, who made me feel broken, and when 
in consequence the question of associating myself with 
some church came up, I drifted from the Lutheran, 
in which I was confirmed, and the Dutch, in which I 
was baptized, into the Baptist. About fifteen years 
ago, without even endeavoring to outline the intellectual 
struggle it cost me, I drifted into the fellowship of the 
Congregational Church. Now I hardly know where 
I belong, and do not know that I care. I have found 
the truth in all these churches. I have found the love 
of the Master in them all, and hearty consecration to 
His work. Perhaps, as I have already intimated, it 
is because of this peculiar rehgious history of mine, 
that such passages concerning unity among Chris- 
tians make such an impression on me. The apostle's 
frequent exhortations to unity betray the fact that 
the church was not then one and undivided, where- 
fore the tendency to religious division is not of modern 
origin. The traces of that kind of division, indeed, 
are on every page of history. There are a good many 
to whom doctrinal divisions are matters of serious 
regret or criticism. H they do not go so far they 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

do insist that the church of to-day has sadly aposta- 
tized from the church of the first century. These 
divisions do not discredit the Christianity of the pres- 
ent time, for they existed in the beginning. They do 
not, therefore, prove an apostasy. There were divi- 
sions in it because the church was organized around a 
person, and not built upon a creed, because the heart 
of a Christian religion is personal fealty to a Lord 
and Master, and not to the teachings of any school, 
however august it may be, whether Wesleyan or 
Augustinian or else. Diversity of intellectual appre- 
hension is inevitable and never could be otherwise. 
The subject, moreover, is too great for us, and there 
will be diversities in interpreting it just as long as 
men are finite, just as long as man is controlled by 
his mental apprehension and not by his emotional. 
Moreover, the subject is too great and profound. It 
is our duty to cultivate the temper of mutual toler- 
ance. It need not disturb the ministry. I would not 
be happy in a church where everything I said was 
believed. Rather would I infinitely prefer that my every 
utterance were tested by the Word of God. If the 
apostles were not discouraged by earnest debate there 
are no reasons why we should be discouraged. We are 
one in the Master whom we serve. It is only ritual 
questions which divide us, questions about whether 
or no we shall have bishops or presbyteries, or whether 
we shall make the church rule itself without any 
power of appeal anywhere : whether we shall baptize 
children, or make faith precede baptism. They are 
merely questions of government, and I am ashamed 
that they should cause such a din of controversy. It 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

is the spirit of God that is necessary. God looketh 
upon the heart. These things do not differentiate us 
in His sight. It is a lesson which every minister 
needs not only to have, but to exercise himself in 
continually, that the doctrine of the universal priest- 
hood of believers is an actual and mighty fact ; there- 
fore they should never attempt to lord it, but to en- 
deavor to do good. To sit at the feet of Christ is 
a minister's safety. To sit at the feet of Christ is a 
church's hope. 

The Philosophy of Preaching. 

Logically, future probation is the necessary conclu- 
sion of the New England Calvinistic theology; and a 
rejection of the conclusion involves a radical recon- 
struction of the Calvinistic system. That reconstruc- 
tion is going on, and it will, before long, give us a 
different theory of missions from that which was 
current one hundred years ago. 

For myself, as you well know, I do not plead for 
missions at home or abroad, on the ground of getting 
men into heaven, or keeping them out of hell. Be 
my philosophy of preaching right or wrong, it is my 
own, wrought out in anguish of spirit through a 
ministry of more than twenty-five years (October 19, 
1890). I do not regard it as my vocation to anticipate 
the retributive judgment of God, nor to lay a founda- 
tion for its exercise. I believe the preacher's calHng 
to be a special and a limited one — to bring men to 
Christ here and now — to deal with the living, not with 
the dead — to make a conquest of the earth for right- 
eousness. It is this globe which we are to conquer 

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THE CHRIST OF XIXETEEX CEXTURIES 

until the habitations of cruelty shall be made radiant 
in the purity and the peace of Jesus Christ. That is 
our task, our great and only one. From tliis point 
of view all speculations about the intermediate state 

and continued probation are out of place and super- 
fluous. I believe in heaven and hell, though I do not in 
any doctrine of election which limits the universal 
and impartial and infinite love of God for all men. I 
believe that the Bible teaches that Christ died for 
all men, and that all men, without exception, are 
under e^ace. and thev are under law. There mv Bible 
leaves the matter, and there I rest. He who shall 
judge all men at the last day is He who died for them 
on the cross : and His decision, I am sure, will be 
tender and true, breaking no bruised reed, quenching 
no smoking tlax. That is His eternal, uncommuni- 
cated secret, and I leave it with Him. Our task is 
more simple and direct, to make this present world 
what it ought to be, what it may be made by the obe- 
dience of Christ, what it must and will become before 
the great white throne casts its blinding splendors 
over heaven and earth. 



The Law of Christiax Progress. 
Progress always means more than advance. It is 
advance joined with living continuit}-. As the roots 
of a plant are indispensable to its existence, so is our 
connection with the past necessary to our spiritual 
existence and growth. Xo Christian can cut loose 
from the Holy Catholic Church. We ought to rejoice 
in communing wth the saints. You know that this 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

is an age of unsettlement everywhere. Men tell us 
all is wrong, and that the only hope is to pull down 
the existing structure of society. This, too, they say, 
is necessary to the church. Sweeping destruction is 
their aim. Chaos would be the result. We are not 
anarchists, either in political economy or in theology. 
We beheve in slow progress in the past, and so in the 
future. These are not things to be scorned or scoffed 
at. We believe that there was wisdom in men of 
the past. I am not one who is ashamed to stick to the 
ancient landmarks, the liturgy and the creed, which 
the church has used. They have served as a bridge 
for millions in the past, and for enormous burdens; 
certainly they will bear my weight. The love of 
Christ and the religion of the Bible are not of recent 
discovery. They are not untried. They have served 
all the saints. Enoch, Elijah, Luther, and Calvin, 
found their safety in them. Let us hold fast to that 
treasure, and see to it that no one can ever take them 
from us. Let not a spirit of intellectual and spiritual 
isolation prevail, but let there be full concord and 
harmony in your work. The Scriptures are never 
rightly understood until they transform us. The re- 
sults are not specific, but vital and practical. They 
constrain, and at the same time impel us ever onward. 
We must be filled with the fullness of God's love. 

Now, we never can equal God in everything. Let 
us not, then, sink back, and in the spirit of Herbert 
Spencer say that the ultimate ground can never lie 
found out. Let us make the attempt at least. God 
surpasses us, and ever will in eternity, in omniscience, 
omnipresence, omnipotence, and infinity ; but then 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

there is a possibility of sharing some of the commun- 
ing attributes of God. We can be like Him in 
veracity, patience, peace, righteousness and compas- 
sion. We can be like Him in holiness, in the white 
light of His moral excellence. We can be filled with 
the moral excellence of God. We can be like Him in 
righteousness and peace. We can be like Him in 
justice, as the dewdrop that hangs on the blade of grass 
is like the boundless ocean whence it was distilled. 
Christian excellence is worth nothing unless it results 
in crystallization of character. No ecstasy of religion 
counts for anything unless in crystallization of char- 
acter, in greater purity, devotion to duty, truth, and 
hatred of sin. Love of Christ is quickened in us, 
and makes us more and more like Him. This is the 
great work of the church. The church accomplishes 
this result, not so much by writing books and planting 
institutions as by rearing holy men and women. No 
sceptic can ever upset this work. 



The Survival of Christianity. 
There is nothing new in the charge that Christianity 
is a fable. From Peter's day down to our own the 
challenge is the same. The main attack is always 
upon the historical element in Christianity. Before 
any gospels had been written, the original witnesses 
were defamed and discredited. Now that they are 
gone, the written gospels are thrown into the crucible, 
and their testimony belittled. In one respect our task 
is a much harder one than that of the first Christians. 
A great gulf of more than eighteen hundred years 
separates us from the facts. Numerous legends and 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

forged documents, apochryphal gospels, and unscru- 
pulous interpolations add to our perplexity. It is 
not an easy thing to cut your way through these tan- 
gled thickets, clearing a path to the manger and the 
cross, and the empty grave. But it has been done, 
and the truth of the Christian message was never so 
clearly and abundantly established as it is to-day. Far 
removed as we are from the original facts the present 
situation has its compensating advantages. 

Christianity has held its ground. It has not proved 
to be a nine days' wonder: a momentary wave of ex- 
citement, such as from time to time appears in savage 
tribes and civilized communities. Its history has been 
very different from that of the witchcraft delusion 
in New England, or that of the crusades in mediaeval 
Europe. It entered the old world to stay; it domi- 
nates the Western Continent, and it is pushing its 
picket lines into all lands. Whatever prestige belongs 
to endurance belongs to the Christian faith. Driven 
out of Palestine, it seized Asia Minor and Northern 
Africa, making Antioch and Ephesus and Alexandria 
illustrations; driven out thence by the armies of Ma- 
homet, it seized and fused the Latin and Germanic 
races, making them the leaders of the world's civil- 
ization. Repudiated by the people among whom it 
first appeared, it found a welcome among men who 
had been very differently trained, who possessed an 
elaborate mythology and imposing ritual, but who 
surrendered their gods and their altars to faith in the 
crucified. If Christianity be a delusion, it is a very 
remarkable one by its long continuance. Possession is 
nine points in the law, and the Gospel is in possession. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

It is conceivable that through all these centuries the 
peoples who have planted schools, created science, art 
and literature; who have been inventors and discov- 
erers; who have fought for liberty and secured inde- 
pendence from ecclesiastical dictation, who have en- 
joyed free speech and a free press, have been deceived, 
but the supposition is an extremely violent one. De- 
lusions do not have so long a run among men who 
are critical in temper, and who are left free in their 
studies. Christianity is too old to be dismissed with 
a sneer; the presumption is in its favor, even on the 
Darwinian theory that in the struggle for existence 
only the fittest survive. Christianity survives. 

The Christian conception of God, as the eternal, 
self-conscious spirit, infinite in power, wisdom, truth, 
holiness and goodness, is absolutely imperious to hos- 
tile criticism. Its conception of man is no less lofty, 
as bearing the image of God, and capable of eternal 
and blessed fellowship with Him. No one would 
think of reversing or modifying any one of the pre- 
cepts of Christianity. They constitute a perfect rule 
of life, and no one would regard universal obedience 
to the Sermon on the Mount as anything but an un- 
qualified blessing. This fact is strong presumptive 
evidence that Christianity is true in its historical con- 
tents, for pure and elevated doctrines are not likely to 
proceed from men who are engaged in concocting 
fables and in spreading delusions. The lie is sure 
to stamp itself into all their words. Where the body 
of doctrine is beyond all possible impeachment, the 
presumption is that there has been no tampering with 
the facts. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Christianity has not been a dead or a speculative 
religion. It has abounded in good works. It has 
never been indifferent to human weal. It has guarded 
the cradle, honored woman, defended the home, cared 
for the sick, liberated the slave, abounded in provi- 
sions for the poor, the unfortunate and the vicious. 
It is determined to crowd into every place. It is not 
baffled by apparent failures. It has a deathless love 
for men, and refuses to abandon them. It is pre- 
eminently a religion of personal loyalty to Jesus Christ, 
its founder, who is to be loved, obeyed and wor- 
shipped. No other religion has ventured thus to 
identify itself with its founder. We have not believed 
cunningly devised fables. The old faith comes back 
out of the fiery furnace, a faith which every one of us 
has felt ought to be true, even when our doubts have 
been most painful. And it is true, if there be any 
truth in heaven, or on earth, or in recorded history; 
and the truth is this, that Jesus Christ came to seek 
and to save the lost, to preach the forgiveness of sins 
in His name, and to open for us the kingdom of 
heaven. 



Paraphrase of Romans 111:21-26. 

Such, then, being the case, that under the law of 
holiness all men are hopelessly guilty, enslaved, and 
condemned, God's way of delivering men from this 
deplorable condition is now made known, though from 
the very first clear intimations have been given of it 
by the law itself and by the prophets, namely, by faith 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

in Jesus Christ; a boon which is offered to Jew and 
Gentile alike, since there is no dift'erence, for all men 
are sinners, and are lacking in what God prizes and 
approves. 

We are therefore to be justified, if at all, regarded 
and treated as holy ; provision is made for our deliv- 
erance from sin, we can be forgiven, renewed and 
made perfect in holiness, freely, not as something, to 
which we can lay claim by purely personal merit. We 
are beggars and bankrupts, hopelessly condemned by 
the Ir.w of God at the bar of our own consciences. 
Our only hope is in executive clemency and inter- 
position. We are utterly dependent upon grace, upon 
the voluntary, undeserved, self-moved compassion of 
God. That compassion has taken form in the re- 
el eeuiing act of Christ Jesus, w^hich redeeming act 
consisted in our Lord's sacrifice of Himself unto death, 
the power of which we appropriate by simple faith; 
which redeeming act God had in mind or purposed 
from all eternity as a means of giving force to His 
redeeming mercy {propitiation). That which has 
taken place in time was freely determined from ever- 
lasting. But God's eternal way of dealing with men, 
and saving themi from sin, has now been shown in act, 
it has been clearly and unanswerably made manifest. 
In the light of that act, giving force to God's redeem- 
ing mercy, we can now understand the riddle of God's 
past treatment of a wicked world, when His forbear- 
ance had the appearance of indifference to the sins 
of men; and in the light of this act it is also clearly 
seen that in saving him who believes in Jesus, God is 
dealing righteously. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Thanksgiving Observance. 

How shall we keep our Thanksgiving? (1890) It 
is not a day of gluttony. It were better to remember 
the hungry and the naked than to stupefy ourselves 
at our overloaded tables. The French revolution was 
precipitated by a royal feast while thousands were 
clamoring for bread to keep them from starving. Our 
land is one of unparalleled abundance. Our plenty is 
such that we waste more than we use. Let us eat 
the fat and drink the sweet; but let us not forget the 
parable of the Rich man and Lazarus. When our 
hearts grow heedless of the poor, who are always with 
us, the curse of God is not far away. Let us give at 
least a portion to those less fortunate than we are, and 
our own bread will be the sweeter for our charity. 
Charity ! I am almost sick of hearing the word. I 
resent the beggarly meaning with which it is invested, 
the condescending air with which we dole out our 
alms. Would you call it charity if it were your child 
which needed your help? And are not all men our 
kin, or is universal brotherhood only a phrase to be 
played with? I do not forget that there must be 
righteousness in our benevolence. We are to love 
our neighbors as we love ourselves. And if we will 
eat only the bread of our own earnings it is right and 
proper that we should compel all others to honor 
that law. I have no sympathy for that modern notion 
that it is the business of some to take care of others. 
That is only another way of saying, that some men 
were born to rule and others to be dependents. That 
degrades manhood, and manhood is what the world 
needs. The law is a wholesome one, that if a man 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

will not work neither shall he eat ; and that he who is 
lazy, or who spends his earnings for drink, should 
be left in his rags to suffer his hunger, that he may 
be driven out of his madness, as was the Prodigal 
Son. But all this should not blind us to the fact that 
there are worthy poor, and that even when men sink 
down into the gutter they are not beyond rescue. It 
were better for us not to have Thanksgiving days than 
to make them seasons of selfish personal congratula- 
tion and indulgence. They ought to be national in 
their outlook, and when they are such our sympathies 
will have the widest scope and the most generous ex- 
pression, and they will become mighty advocators in 
fraternal helpfulness. 

As the day lifts us out of our personal environment 
to rejoice before the Lord in a common heritage, so it 
summons us to lay aside all partisanship and section- 
alism. This day is sacred to American patriotism, 
without which no party is entitled to a hearing, and 
which all parties are forward to profess. We rally 
under the Stars and Stripes, one and indivisible 
through all the fierce conflict of opinion, and through 
every form of political revolution. Thorough discus- 
sion is the safety of free institutions, and frequent 
changes of political responsibility, on the whole, help 
the cause of good government. 

ifc ji: ijc >ji 

You may be selfish in your patriotism, but unselfish- 
ness may make your love for the Stars and Stripes 
only deeper and more intense. For new as the word 
solidarity may be, the thing represented by it is as old 
as the race of man. Whether we purpose it or not, 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

whether we hke it or not, we are helpers one of an- 
other. I am not a patriot merely because the land of 
my adoption is the freest under the sun, but because 
this seed of freedom is destined to become the bread 
of a hungry world. I know that we are told that this 
is an age of discontent, and men are restless and un- 
easy, and that these things are ominous mutterings 
of impending earthquakes. I heard it once said that 
the most contented people on the earth are the Es- 
quimaux of Greenland, who are dwarfed in body, eat 
blubber and live in ice huts. So are the people of 
Greenwood Cemetery contented, but there is no reason 
for making the whole world a graveyard. For myself, 
I love a restless age, for motion is the evidence of life. 
The seed is restless in its play. The boy looks with 
hungry eyes into the future. As the world is to-day, 
I do not want to see it contented. I want to see it 
seething and boiling, until all iniquities and wicked 
irregularities shall be swept away, and righteousness 
shall be enthroned. It is a noble gospel which this 
nation is preaching. It is a sublime experiment which 
we have undertaken, and its success cannot fail to be 
a blessing to all nations. Only let us not forget the 
earnest reminder which Moses introduced into his 
statute appointing the feast of tabernacles: (Deut. 
xvi:i2) ''Observe and do these statutes.'' Observe 
them. Keep your eyes open. Indifiference is the 
bane of a free people, the unguarded gate through 
which despotism creeps in; and the camel's head once 
in the tent, the owner will be driven out. Observe then, 
and do! Rectitude is our impervious armor. Right- 
eousness alone exalts a nation. 

H5 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Meaning of the Divinely Inspired Bible. 

What do we mean when we say that the Bible is 
divinely inspired? 

We mean that the writings so designated are divine- 
ly authoritative, binding upon us as an infallible rule 
of faith and practice. It does not follow that a man 
is inspired because he is a true man ; it does not follow 
that a book is inspired because the author has been 
careful to give us a true account of what he believes. 
No liar can be inspired. No forgery can have in it the 
breath of God. But the opposite of these statements 
cannot be maintained. Inspiration is not the universal 
attribute of true and truthful man, nor a necessary 
quality of the truth-telling books. True men have 
been false guides, as Coleridge said long ago: "I be- 
lieve a Unitarian may be a Christian, but I am sure 
that Unitarianism is not Christianity/' And bad men 
have written books which were a true expression of 
their thoughts ; as when Rosseau wrote his Confessions, 
and Thomas Paine, the Age of Reason; but no one 
regards these books as inspired. When we say that 
the Bible is inspired, we mean something more than 
that its books were written by honest men, who have 
told us what they believed. We mean that the breath 
of God pervades these writings; that through them 
the infallible authority of God is conveyed to us ; that 
the message which these men delivered was given 
them of God; that they were the conscious subjects 
of a personal Divine revelation and guidance. This is 
the habitual claim of Moses and the prophets, of Christ 
and the Apostles. They speak not merely as good and 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

true men, but as consciously moved by the Holy 
Spirit; and that makes their message authoritative. 

When we speak of the Bible as inspired, we mean 
that the Divine authority extends both to the thought 
conveyed and to the language in which it is found. 
The phrase, 'Verbal inspiration,'' is loose and indefi- 
nite. For the Latin word verhum, like the Greek 
word logos, means both word and discourse. It means 
both language in general, and separate words in par- 
ticular. And the essential thing contended for in 
"verbal inspiration," is that the language of the Bible 
authoritatively conveys the thought of God. That 
position must be maintained in any rational and con- 
sistent doctrine of inspiration. For thought and lan- 
guage are inseparable. The metaphysicians have de- 
bated whether thought is possible without language; 
but certainly there can be no communication of 
thought from man to man without language; and the 
supreme question for us is whether the writers of 
the Bible have given us, in the language which they 
used, the thought which God gave them. We are not 
primarily concerned with the problem of the nature 
and the method of that impact of the Spirit of God 
upon the mind of the prophet or of the apostle by which 
they were put into possession of the Divine thought. 
The revelation was given for purposes of communica- 
tion to us; and to secure the accuracy of tliat com- 
munication, the language was not a matter of compara- 
tive insignificance. We can get at the thought of God 
only by the most careful study of the language. We 
cannot neglect idioms, not even particles, and moods, 
and tenses. We must master the language of the 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

prophet, in which alone he could communicate the 
Divine message. If I want to make my thought clear 
to a child, so that he can communicate it clearly to 
others, I must put it in the terms of that child's lan- 
guage, no matter how imperfect it may be. I must use 
the child's logic, rhetoric, and vocabulary. And when 
God would make His will known through a prophet, 
He could do it in no other way than by accommodating 
Himself to such mastery of language as the prophet 
possessed. For the aim of revelation is not the illu- 
mination of the prophet, but the communication of 
truth to us through the prophet ; and hence the Divine 
superintendence must extend to, and include, the lan- 
guage as well as the thought. Hence the words of 
Scripture must be carefully and closely studied, if we 
want to reach the thought of God; only the separate 
words must not be dissected by the entymological 
knife-blade, but treated as the members of living dis- 
course. And as no two men use language in exactly 
the same way, we must not lump the Scriptures, but 
carefully study the idiom and verbal peculiarities of 
each writer, with constant reference to his literary, 
social, and religious environment. 

When we speak of the Bible as inspired, we mean — 
and it is of supreme importance to remember this — 
that it is infallibly authoritative for a definite purpose. 
Inspiration did not impart omniscience. It did not 
eliminate ignorance of every kind. It did not guar- 
antee infallible authority on all subjects. It guided 
men only along that single and definite line where 
authoritative guidance was needed. It did not busy 
itself with genealogical registers, or chronological 

148 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

tables, or scientific theories, or an annalistic treatment 
of the history. It was simply intent upon making 
known to men the mind and will of God concerning- 
righteousness and redemption. It was said long ago, 
by a Catholic theologian, when Galileo was tried for 
heresy: 'The Scriptures do not tell us how the heav- 
ens go, but how to go to heaven.'' When we say that 
the Bible is inspired, has in it the breath of God, we 
also limit the inspiration; we simply mean that they 
authoritatively teach us what God is, what God has 
done to save us, and what we must do to be sav.ed. 



Statement and Treatment of Scriptural 
Differences. 

There are many types of doctrine in the Old and 
New Testaments, and one of the most fruitful of mod- 
ern studies has been the setting forth of these differ- 
ences. There is a theology of the Pentateuch, if not 
several; there is a theology of the Psalms, and that, 
too, has its varieties; there is a theology of Hosea, 
of Amos, of Isaiah, of James, of Peter, of Paul, of 
John. It is the same precious metal held in a variety 
of molds. The diversity is not contradiction. The 
later statement does not supplant the preceding ones. 
It complements and crowns them, as the stalk crowns 
the root, as blossom and fruit crown the trunk. The 
variety has disclosed the deeper unity of Scripture, and 
the steady advance of revelation from Tyloses to John. 
Moses did not know it all, and he did not say it all. 
Isaiah did not know it all, and he did not say it all. 
Paul did not know it all, and he did not say it all. We 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

must join them all together, when we want the mes- 
sage in its completeness, with Christ's own words to 
illuminate the whole. It is just this which makes the 
Gospel of John, latest of all the inspired writings/ 
of such transcendent importance, because in it we 
discover the depth and height of our Lord's teaching, 
as we do nowhere else. 

Inspiration is not inconsistent with inaccuracy in 
statement, and with imperfection of unimportant de- 
tails. There are many admitted difficulties and discrep- 
ancies of verbal statement in the Scriptures. The Ten 
Commandments are differently phrased in Exodus and 
in Deuteronomy. In many particulars the Book of 
Chronicles differs from the Book of Kings. The gene- 
alogies of Matthew and of Luke have never been satis- 
factorily harmonized. The Lord's Prayer is differently 
reported. The Sermon on the Mount is not verbally the 
same in Luke as in Matthew. The details in the dif- 
ferent accounts of our Lord's resurrection are not capa- 
ble of being perfectly harmonized in the present state 
of our knowledge. The discourses of our Lord as re- 
ported by John, show marked peculiarities of thought 
and expression, when we compare them with the dis- 
courses preserved in the earlier Gospels. No one de- 
nies these facts ; no one can deny them. They are not 
all due to the carelessness of copyists. Some of them 
undoubtedly are; but many others belong to the very 
fiber of the Scriptural narrative. And no considerate 
theologian holds a doctrine of inspiration which com- 
pels him to deny these differences and discrepancies. 
Even those who would make the word "inerrancy" a 
test, a word which is found neither in the Bible nor in 

ISO 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

the great Protestant confessions, and cannot therefore 
be made a test of orthodoxy, only mean by it accuracy, 
the absence of positive and serious error. They freely 
admit difficulties and discrepancies. They deem silence 
wiser and more reverent than dogmatic speech. They 
insist, however, that the general law of Scripture is 
accuracy, giving us a true picture of fact and an au- 
thoritative disclosure of the mind of God. 
: "Errors and inaccuracies," says Van Oosterzee, ''in 
matters of subordinate importance are undoubtedly 
to be found in the Bible. A Luther, a Calvin, a Coe- 
cejus, among the older theologians ; a Tholuck, a 
Neander, a Lange, a Stier, among the more modern 
ones, have admitted this without hesitation. But this 
proves absolutely nothing against the trustworthy au- 
thority of the Word of God, where it is speaking of the 
Way of Salvation." Dr. Henry B. Smith, speaking of 
those who have maintained that all the contents of the 
Bible were dictated word for word, and syllable by syl- 
lable, adds : "This theory has now scarcely any advo- 
cates. It has to be explained so as to be consistent 
with different reports of the same sayings, and with 
different details of the same facts, and with different 
citations of the same passage; and after it has been 
subjected to these modifications, it is no longer a com- 
manding theory." And Dr. Charles Hodge writes : 
"The errors in matters of fact which sceptics search 
out bear no proportion to the whole. No sane man 
would deny that the Parthenon was built of marble, 
even if here and there a speck of sandstone should lie 
detected in its structure. Not less unrcasonal^lo is it 
to deny the inspiration of such a book as the Bibk\ hc- 

f5i 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

cause one sacred writer says that on a given occasion 
twenty-four, and another says twenty-three, thousand 
men were slain. Surely, a Christian may be allowed 
to tread such objections under his feet." To which it 
is proper to add that a reverent student of the Bible 
must so frame his doctrine of inspiration as to leave 
room for such differences as Dr. Hodge instances, and 
for many others which are not so easily explained. 
We may rest assured that the plenary authority of the 
Bible will not suffer by dealing with it honestly and 
fearlessly. There is some justification for impatience 
with those who spend all their time and energy in pick- 
ing flaws, in pointing out and magnifying the specks of 
sandstone in the temple of God's truth ; but neither 
should a speck of sandstone be ignored and labeled by 
some other name. The great evangelical contention is 
that the Holy Scriptures are authoritative and binding 
in their essential contents, in what they teach of right- 
eousness, and redemption, and the kingdom of God. 



The Constraining Love of Christ. 

There is work for us to do, as well as burdens to 
bear. It is often discouraging. We look with longing 
eyes for the harvest. We wonder whether we are not 
spending our strength in vain. There is but one 
motive which can supply us with needed strength 
and tenacity — the love of Christ for men. Solicitude 
for their personal safety, here and hereafter, is some- 
thing which cannot be for any one of us an habitual 
and conscious incentive. We should be raving maniacs 
in a month. More legitimate is the motive which 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

springs from the love of righteousness. But that takes 
the form of duty rather than of inspiration. It gives 
no wings to endeavor. Higher and mightier still is 
love for our Saviour. But love in us is not self-fed 
and self-moved. It is subject to many fluctuations. 
It has flood and ebb, and the tide must come in every 
day. Ah! That is what the church needs, the tide, 
the baptism of the spirit, the vision of Christ's love 
for the world, whenever the trumpet calls to service, 
though the path lies through the death shades. The 
love of Christ must constrain us. For in that love 
there is an intensity, a universality, a tenacity, a 
wealth of resources and appliances which will impart 
to us a holy and undying enthusiasm. Whether we 
think of the heathen abroad, or of the heathen who 
throng our own streets, we shall go with winged feet 
and with an indomitable assurance of ultimate success, 
if we make Christ's love our theme and inspiration. 
By that sign we conquer, mastering our fears and 
doubts, perpetually refreshed for service, anticipating 
the glory of the hastening triumph, and facing death 
with banners unfurled, and with the spirit of victory 
upon our lips. 

I am standing at the gate of a palace. There are 
no grim sentinels to crowd me back. I am weary, 
hungry, homeless. The night has settled down upon 
me, and in the fierce North the tempest is gathering. 
Food and rest and safety are within sight, but I dare 
not claim them : for my longing and my need are no 
assurance that I would be welcome. I feast my eyes 
upon the light, upon the tables spread with generous 
abundance, and upon the guests whose shining faces 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

speak their joy. But the vision only makes more sad 
and conscious plight. Nor am I alone. I am one of 
a great company huddled at the gateway, hungry, 
ragged, weary unto death. Suddenly the palace front 
blazes with electric lights, whose message burns its 
way into my heart. I read : ''Welcome to every wan- 
derer, to all who are footsore and friendless. Who- 
soever will, let him come." And the doors are wide 
open. 

This is not a dream. It is a blessed reality. An 
outcast there is not on the face of the wide earth. A 
friendless soul there is not among the millions of the 
race. For though man may repudiate the claims of 
brotherhood, God does not surrender His Fatherhood. 
Though it be but one sheep out of a hundred, or one 
coin out of ten, he misses and wants His lost posses- 
sion. It is lost to Him. Every wandering prodigal 
leaves a vacancy in His heart, and rouses His intensest 
solicitude. Forgiveness and healing, the joy and the 
inheritance of sonship, are within the reach of all. 
This is the Gospel, the glad and inspiring message 
which Jesus Christ bids us carry to all men. You 
have believed it, and you have taken God at His word. 
You are resting on God's love. It has brought you 
peace. It stirs you to purity. It makes you submis- 
sive and patient. It fills you with the hope of glory. 
Repeat the story to yourself every morning as you 
begin your work, and at night when you lie down to 
sleep. And tell it to your neighbor, to the children, 
to the young and to the old, to rich and poor, to those 
who laugh and to those who weep, to the broken 
hearted and to the despairing, until all faces shine, 
and all hearts are glad, and all lives are pure. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES. 

The Later Religious Spirit. 

We are slowly learning to fix our eyes on the present 
life and upon this planet, as the sphere into which we 
are to look for the fruits of the preaching of the 
Gospel, and this is making us clamorous for a work- 
ing theology, a theology which shall show us how 
most intelligently and successfully to deal with practi- 
cal problems (1892). We do not believe less in heaven 
and hell, but we believe a good deal more in the earth 
than did our fathers. Ours is a great missionary age. 
Salvation has a large, practical meaning. It involves 
something more than rescue from future perdition. It 
is a present deliverance from the power of sin, and a 
present reign of righteousness. It concerns the indi- 
vidual, the home, the city, the nation, the world, capital 
and labor, art and science, work and play. We speak 
more of duty than of destiny, more of the present than 
of the future. The mission of the church is with the 
present, ungodly world, to subdue and transfigure it, 
and the Scriptures are our armory in conducting that 
campaign. We are not preaching the Gospel merely 
as a testimony against the nations, or, as Dr. Van 
Dyke is reported once to have pithily said, ''to furnish 
Almighty God with a good and sufficient reason for 
damning the people who refuse to listen to us;'' nor 
are we preaching the Gospel as a means of gathering 
the elect, which practically amounts to the same thing, 
but we are preaching the Gospel to redeem the world. 
And here we only retreat to the position of prophets 
and apostles, the horizon of whose vision was always 
bounded by a renewed and redeemed earth, naiiiel's 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

fourth and eternal kingdom is an earthly kingdom. 
John's city of jasper and gold, the New Jerusalem, 
comes down from God out of heaven ; it is the capital 
of an earthly empire, where temples are no longer 
needed, and where the night never comes. To this 
kingdom belongs the eternal future, whose king is 
Jesus Christ. Be it ours to crown Him Lord of all in 
our own hearts, and to fight under His banner, that 
when the silver trumpets of victory sound, we may 
march in the conquering ranks and receive our reward. 



The Atonement. 

God makes His redeeming mercy effective in Jesus 
Christ, who, by His incarnation, holy life, sacrificial 
death and glorious resurrection, paid the price of our 
moral emancipation. A sinless man, victorious over 
death, is the salvation of our guilty and enslaved 
nature. The substitution is personal. He took our 
place. He became man and conquered in the bitter 
fight with sin. He reversed the moral history of the 
world. He did not endure the wrath of God, for God 
sent Him to give effect to His redeeming mercy, and 
He was always the well-beloved. He did not suffer 
our deserved penalties, for He was not a sinner, and 
could not, therefore, experience guilt, or shame, or 
penitence, or remorse ; and beside, the penalties of 
crime cannot be transferred. He did not suffer what 
was an equivalent to our punishment, because a per- 
fect moral law cannot compromise its claims. The soul 
that sinneth, it shall die. His sufferings were simply 
such as were inevitable in overcoming sin and death, 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

in giving force to God's redeeming mercy. When, the 
other day, that brave man plunged into the moving 
ice to rescue a drowning woman, he risked his own 
Hfe in the attempt. The water chilled him to the 
bone, the ice cut his hands and face. But you would 
not call his suffering penal, nor would you say that 
his suffering took the place of the woman's suffering, 
whose cry for help he had heard and heeded. He took 
the woman's place, wedded his life to hers and let her 
go only when his numb hands became powerless. His 
suffering was purely remedial — there was no transfer 
in the case. Jesus Christ made common cause with 
us when He became a man. He plunged into the 
chilHng tide of death to save us. I am careful to look 
at this matter in the simple and Scriptural form in 
which the Scriptures deal with it, ignoring the inter- 
minable metaphysics with which the doctrine of the 
atonement has been overlaid. I will not preach what 
I do not understand. And I do not understand the 
theologians, much as I believe in theology. The Scrip- 
tural language I can and do understand, when it 
represents Jesus Christ as the gift of God's redeeming 
mercy, who in His own flesh destroyed the power of 
sin and of death, and so inaugurated the eternal re- 
demption of my nature. I only need to surrender 
myself to Him, and let Him repeat that conquest in 
my flesh, and I shall be what He is. The great atone- 
ment, as an act of glorious emancipation, to which 
deliverance I became heir by faith in Christ. I can 
understand; and that is the form in which it is most 
frequently set fortli in the Old and New Testaments. 
The most terrible fact about sin is my bondage or 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

enslavement to it. Pardon is of little avail. I must 
be emancipated. Some one must kill the tyrant who 
has me in his grip. That Jesus Christ has done, as 
plainly appears in His holy life, and in His victory 
over death. The secret of salvation is in His hands, 
and He only can impart it to me. Therefore, faith in 
Him becomes the natural, the necessary and inevitable 
channel of redeeming power. I must be in Him, and 
abide in Him as the branch is and abides in the vine. 
If to some of you this has a strange sound, let me say 
that I have struggled through every theory of the 
atonement which has been propounded, and this is 
the only construction of it which I can understand, and 
which is verified to me in my personal experience. In 
Jesus Christ I find the conqueror of my sin. As I 
come near to Him, and surrender myself to the power 
of His spirit, sin is hated, holiness is loved, tempta- 
tion recedes, penitence is quickened, and purity, like 
a winged white dove, broods over the disturbed depths 
of my spirit. I know it, I know it! and through my 
experience, and the part which He shares in it, I read 
the secret of His mighty passion, and of His glorious 
redemption. In Him God has made His redeeming 
grace effective. 

Unity in Congregationalism. 
The secret of unity lies in independence, and in the 
right of association which such independence involves ; 
leaving doctrinal, ritual, and administrative prefer- 
ences to express themselves freely and without damage 
or loss to universal Christian fellowship. When we 
shall come to see that the church makes the denomi- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES. 

nation, not the denomination the church, and that the 
church may be a church with or without denomina- 
tional affihation, as a man may be a man in rags or in 
purple, the problem of Christian unity will cease to 
vex us, and the way will be prepared for Christian 
federation. I believe, therefore, that Congregational- 
ism still has a mission, as a repudiation of theological 
dogmatism, as a protest against ecclesiastical central- 
ization and as involved in these, to point the simplest 
way to the unit> of Christendom. Congregationalism 
boldly takes the ground that fellowship in Christ is 
the only countersign in the Christian brotherhood; or 
to use Robert Hall's phrase, coined for a different 
purpose, but applicable here : ''Nothing may be a term 
of communion which is not a term of salvation.'' 



End of Ten Years in Central Church. 
I am to speak of the principles which have shaped 
my ministry, and more especially my public utterances, 
for my main work among you has been from the pul- 
pit. And in calling your attention to these principles, 
my embarrassment is greatly relieved by the reflection 
that my predecessors and myself have walked in the 
same steps, and have been of the same mind. Your 
pastors have changed, but the tone of their preaching 
has been the same. And it has been the same because 
not one of them has dared to speak otherwise than as 
the oracles of God dictated. You have been kept in 
line with the company of prophets and apostles, of 
martyrs and of saints. Each man has builded in his 
own way, but the foundation has neither been dis- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

turbed nor disregarded. This pulpit has never been 
a free lance, and I hope it never will be. For the 
Christian Church has a definite mission, and the Chris- 
tian ministry has a clearly defined vocation. It is not 
commissioned to enter the field of political reforma- 
tion, nor to assume leadership in industrial and eco- 
nomic movements, nor to pose as experts in science 
and letters, nor even to engage in theological disputes. 
Its simple task is to preach the Gospel ; to tell the old 
story, than which no better one was ever told, and 
to tell it with such directness, freshness and force, 
that it shall burn its way into the hearts of men, and so 
transfigure their lives. Some may regard this as a 
very restricted vocation; but it is the narrowness of 
Paul and of Jesus Christ which aims at the innermost 
life and leaves the rest to be molded by it. It is a lim- 
itation divinely imposed, the wisdom of which has been 
amply justified in the history of the past and in the 
record of present Christendom. A courageous accept- 
ance of that limitation is the preacher's safety, and 
it is his strength. In adhering to it he avoids a thou- 
sand entanglements, and secures for the Divine mes- 
sage the ear of an undivided and undistracted con- 
stituency. It is the dictate of prudence, and it is the 
high behest of that loyalty which he owes to Jesus 
Christ, the Master. 



Future Punishment. 
The doctrine of eternal punishment must be sep- 
arated from the notion of a divine vindictiveness. I 
have seen the statement in cold type, that in order to 
reveal His glory, God must have subjects of grace 

1 60 




Union CoNUKKCiATioNAi, CiiUKt ii, I'kovidknck, K. 1. 

(Dr. Hohremls'Thinl Pastorate) 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

and victims of wrath. Nothing can be more false. 
The State does not need criminals to give expression 
to its righteousness. By its reformatory institutions 
it seeks to reduce the criminal class, and would be 
glad to eliminate it altogether. The glory of the State 
is not in its penitentiaries. And God does not need 
sinners for the display of His justice. He hates sin 
with an infinite hatred. He does not permit or use 
it as an occasion for the display of His justice. He 
would rather not use His punitive justice at all. 
Judgment is His strange work, from which He shrinks. 
His rule is one of remedial agencies in which all things 
are so ordered as to check sin and save the sinner. 
The bolt leaps only when it must, when it can no 
longer be held back. He is long suffering. He has 
no pleasure in any man's death. He wills every man's 
salvation. God loves all. 

Christ died for all. Truth and the Holy Spirit are 
for all. There is plenary ability and gracious oppor- 
tunity for all. These things the Gospel places in the 
foreground. There is a book of life; but it has well 
been added, there is no book of death. When a soul 
is saved all heaven is glad, and God records the name ; 
but when a soul is lost God has no heart to write the 
name in a book kept for that purpose. We do read of 
names that are blotted out of the book of life, a thing 
which implies regret; but we read of no erasures in 
the book of death, because there is no such book. 
God has but one book, the book of life. In that book 
every name is written in lines of blood, and where any 
name is blotted out, it is because the grace that saves 
has been wilfully and wickedly rejected. God wants 

i6i 
6 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES, 

no victims of his wrath. He does not need a hell to 
magnify His justice, and its presence must be a per- 
petual sorrow to Him as we deplore the necessity 
which, in the interests of public security, compels us 
to send men to Sing Sing. God is not vindictive. 

The doctrine of eternal punishment must be sepa- 
rated from the notion of external infliction. When the 
Bible speaks of ^'stripes'' we are to remember that the 
language is figurative. We are not to think of a whip- 
ping post to which men are tied while so many lashes 
are laid upon their backs. The soul lashes itself. 
When the Scriptures speak of a prison of outer dark- 
ness, and a bottomless pit, we are not to materialize 
these phrases as if they meant definite places, fitted up 
with all the means of inflicting penalties. The soul 
holds all these. It is not in them, they are in it. 
Heaven and hell, the glory and shame, are in us. Hun- 
dreds of men have been thrust into prisons who were 
not branded thereby. It is no disgrace to Paul and 
Bunyan that they were flung into dungeons. The crim- 
inal brand did not adhere to them. It was no shame 
that Christ died on the cross. The martyrs suffered no 
ignominy because the fire consumed their bodies. A 
thousand judges cannot break his spirit if he be en- 
trenched in conscious innocence. Shame and disgrace 
and miser}^ come only by self -judgment. ''^lyself am 
hell,'' Milton makes Satan say ; and the blind poet was 
right. The broken law is not enforced by external 
penalties; the judgment of God, w^hatever it may be, 
is always articulated and enforced in the self-judg- 
ment of the man. The soul is its own and only cham- 
ber of torture. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

The doctrine of eternal punishment must be sepa- 
rated from the notion that physical suffering is the 
penalty of sin, or its main ingredient. There is a con- 
ception of eternal punishment which commends itself 
to my rational judgment, but the infliction of physical 
torment is something which fills me with unqualified 
horror, and the God which would do such a thing 
would simply be an omnipotent and unmitigated devil. 
Righteousness is not cruelty. But do we not read of 
the fire that cannot be quenched, and the worm which 
dieth not, wailing and gnashing of teeth, the outer 
darkness, hell fire, the bottomless pit, and the lake 
which burneth with fire and brimstone ? Yes ; but if 
you will locate the imagery you will see that it does not 
suggest the idea of torture. The hell of our English 
speech is simply the Greek word Gehenna, and that is 
simply the Hebrew Ge Hinnom, the Valley of Hinnom. 
And what was this Ge Hinnom? It is a deep, nar- 
row ravine to the south of Jerusalem, and outside the 
city walls, where Alhas had located the worship of the 
fire gods, and where living sacrifices had been offered 
to Moloch. Its associations became so abominable that 
it was made the dumping ground of the bodies of 
criminals, of the carcasses of beasts, and of everything 
that was unclean. And to prevent the place becoming 
a breeding ground of pestilence the fires were kept per- 
petually burning. No living thing was tortured there. 
Only the putrid and loathsome were deposited there, 
the things which were dangerous to health, and the 
fire was simply a sanitary provision. It prevented 
pestilential contagion. The idea, therefore, in the ter- 
rible imagery, is simply that of separation of the un- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

clean from the clean, and the unholy from the holy, 
a separation com.pleted by forever putting an end to the 
corrupting power of the unclean and the unholy. The 
fires of judgment are a purifying agency, making an 
end to the power of sin ; they are not a means of tor- 
ture. Gehenna stands for the destruction of sin — ^put- 
ting an eternal end to its power for moral mischief and 
misery. 

We reach the same conclusion by another path of 
reasoning. The imagery of the final judgment is local. 
It is drawn from the judicial methods then in vogue. 
These included physical torture of the most barbaric 
kind. The prisons were made living and loathsome 
tombs. One cannot now inspect them without inde- 
scribable horror. I entered only two of them in Rome, 
and I had enough for a lifetime. It makes one faint 
and sick at heart to look at the instruments of torture 
freely used to extort confession. And when death 
was inflicted it was with a fiendish glee. Men and 
women were flayed and sawn asunder, and disem- 
boweled, and quartered, and crucified. But I spare 
you. It is too horrible for description. Now, the 
judicial procedure must be taken as a whole if we are 
to read aright so much of it as has been incorporated 
in the Biblical description. The largest part of it finds 
no place in Scripture. It is a fact of great signifi- 
cance, which has not been sufficiently considered, that 
physical torture finds no place in the examination by 
which eternal destiny is determined. Souls are not 
starved into confession. The truth is not extorted by 
thumb-screw and rack. The nations are self-convicted 
when they appear before the Judge. They have not 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

been brought out of dungeons. They are not scourged 
in His presence. 

Now, the first great reform in the judiciary was the 
elimination of torture from the trial of the accused. 
The court room was purged of it. That feature has 
dropped out of our modern procedure, and with it 
have gradually disappeared the means once freely em- 
ployed in the prisons to make the life of the inmates 
one of physical torment. They are punished, but they 
are not starved and flogged. It is not upon the body 
that sentence is executed. Physical torture could hold 
its place in the prisons only so long as it was legiti- 
mate in court where the criminal was tried. When 
the judge repudiated it, the warden could not retain it, 
and we have come to brand it as indefensible cruelty. 

The argument, as applied to God's judgment of men, 
is simply this : Physical suffering is not used to secure 
the confession of guilt and the conviction of the guilty ; 
it cannot, therefore, enter into the penalty which is im- 
posed and executed. The judgment itself is always 
represented as a free moral process without the use 
of physical force, resulting in self-conviction ; and that 
makes it impossible for physical torture to enter into 
the penalty. Thus, when the Scriptural doctrine of 
the final judgment is treated as a unit, the notion of 
physical suffering is summarily discredited. It should 
be repudiated in toto, and with unmistakable emphasis. 
Torture is something which has no place in God's 
moral economy. He destroys the power of sin, but He 
does not stretch the sinner on the rack. 

The doctrine of eternal punishment must be sepa- 
rated from the notion that the penalty is conscious and 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

continuous mental agony and torment. This more re- 
fined theory is as baseless as that of physical suffering. 
The penalty is declared to be death, the second death, 
eternal death. But death is not a state of conscious 
suffering of any kind. What is death? We define 
physical death as the separation of the soul from the 
body, but that is only the immediate cause of death. 
That is not death. Death itself is the stagnation 
of the bodily organs issuing in disintegration and 
decay. The heart ceases to act, the muscles become 
rigid, and the nerves lose their sensitiveness. Eternal 
death, we say, is the eternal separation of the soul 
from God. That is only the immediate and the 
eternal cause of the soul's death. In its resultant effects 
upon the soul it can only be stagnation, the collapse of 
its powers, the darkening of the mind, the hardening 
of the sensibilities, the searing of the conscience, the 
weakening of the will. To mistake falsehood for truth, 
to become past feehng and past moral endeavor, is the 
ruin of the soul. So far is it from being true that 
men become more sensitive as they become more 
wicked, that the very reverse is the case. It is the 
youthful criminal who feels his disgrace most keenly. 
The old offender becomes hardened and falls into a 
dull contentment with his degraded lot. His own con- 
science does not trouble him, and the public frown 
does not disturb him. There is hope of a man so long 
as he is morally sensitive. His degradation is most 
complete and hopeless when he has become totally in- 
different. Tell me, when is manhood or womanhood 
in ruin ? Not among those who blush for their shame 
or the victims of remorse. Such people are not ut- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

terly dead. The saddest spectacle on earth is a soul 
which is content with its degradation, which feels no 
shame, and which has ceased to care for the good. 
The absence of mental suffering in such cases is only 
an index of the darkness and death into which such a 
soul has fallen. We speak of such people as wrecks, 
in whom all that is noble has suffered collapse. They 
lie stranded upon the beach of life. And eternal death 
can mean only one thing, the hopeless and eternal 
wreck of the soul, in whose awful crash reason, sensi- 
bility, conscience and will go down together. It is 
moral annihilation. It is not ceasing to be. It is not 
endless physical torment, it is not conscious eternal 
shame and remorse. The soul is dead, and if there be 
anything sadder than that I cannot imagine what it is. 
The Lord preserve us all from that. 

The doctrine of eternal punishment must be sepa- 
rated from the disputed question whether probation 
ends at death or at the final judgment, or whether it is 
indefinite. Some say that God never shuts the door, 
that pardon and salvation will forever remain possible. 
The debate at this point can never reach a settled con- 
clusion, for the argument is conducted upon purely 
speculative grounds. If I were asked the hypothetical 
question, ''Suppose that in the endless future a succes- 
sion of lost souls should sincerely repent and plead for 
mercy, would Jesus Christ avert His eyes and strike 
down their hands?'' I should answer promptly and 
emphatically, ''No!'' But I cannot see that there is 
any very great relief in such a solution. It remains 
to be seen that impenitence gradually wears away, 
and does not tend to permanence; that hardness of 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

heart disappears in time, instead of becoming more 
absolute. The known facts are all in the other direc- 
tion. The probabilities of moral reformation diminish 
as men grow older. All are agreed that childhood and 
youth are most favorable to goodness. Character 
seems to tend to moral permanence at a very early 
period, and there is nothing to warrant the idea that 
millions of years hold in them a mysterious grace 
which is less active in the earthly life, and even were 
the suggested possibility admitted it would not follow 
that ultimately all souls would repent and so be 
saved. The awful fact of a judgment involving the 
possibility of the soul's eternal ruin remains, how- 
ever far into the future it may be pushed. It cannot 
be eliminated from the New Testament. It cannot be 
expunged from the teachings of Christ, and I say to 
you with perfect frankness that I could be a Universal- 
ist only by ceasing to be a Christian minister, and by 
ceasing to bear the Christian name. I do not say 
that a man must believe in eternal punishment in order 
to be a Christian, but I do say that, so far as I can see, 
there is an eternal logical contradiction between the 
recognition of Christ as an authoritative teacher and 
the positive affirmation that there is no such thing as 
the hopeless and eternal ruin of the soul. Jesus Christ 
says there is, and that, for me, ends the controversy. 
I find no pleasure in the thought. I would rather 
that it were not so. Reduce the number as you will, 
bring it down to ten, or even one, and my heart is op- 
pressed. It is not numbers that startle me, but the 
awful fact itself, the simple idea of an eternally ruined 
soul — heedlessly unfeeling, wrecked. In fact, I am 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

not sure that a reduction in numbers does not aggra- 
vate the burden. That one soul had a mother, and 
that mother's heart must forever carry the sorrow 
and cast a shadow upon the heavenly bHss. For 
heaven cannot mean oblivion and the death of natural 
affection. I would rather that all men are saved. 
And I believe that God prefers that. He shrinks from 
blotting any man's name from the book of life, and 
when it is blotted out the vacant space must cause 
Him deep and eternal grief. He is not anxious to 
doom one man to eternal death. But sin means ruin, 
and God Himself cannot prevent the death of the soul 
which will not repent and abandon its wilful wicked- 
ness. I do not know of any one who has phrased 
the matter more happily than Dean Alford, who holds 
a deservedly high place among modern New Testa- 
ment scholars, when he says : "There is election to life ; 
but there is no reprobation to death; a book of life; 
but no book of death; no hell for man, because the 
blood of Jesus hath purchased life for all; but they 
who will serve the devil must share with him in the 
end." This is only saying that sin brings moral ruin ; 
a ruin ever deepening as sin is unrepented of and un- 
forsaken, until at last, by persistent impenitence, the 
ruin becomes hopeless and^ eternal. God saves all 
whom He can save ; and he would gladly save all. 
But He can save from sin and redeem to holiness only 
such as hunger and thirst after righteousness. He 
can save only such as want to be saved. The free- 
dom of the sinner is the one thing which He cannot 
force, and which may thwart His grace forever. The 
eternal ruin of a soul, therefore, is something for 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

which He is in no way responsible, except so far as 
He is responsible for making us free and responsible 
agents. Or, to quote again from Dean Alford, ''AH 
man's salvation is of God, all his condemnation from 
himself/' We live in the economy of redemption, 
where God leaves nothing undone that can be done 
to save every man ; and where only deliberate and per- 
sistent wickedness can doom a soul to eternal death. 

All souls are made to be saved, and one soul as 
much as another. I cannot believe anything else when 
I face the Father in the Son of Man. And yet the ter- 
rible shadow will not lift. Infinite love, welcoming 
the agony and the cross, that all men may be redeemed, 
enduring them in fulfillment of the purpose of uni- 
versal redemption, declares that the soul may sink into 
the sepulcher of an eternal death. Upon how many 
that doom may fall I do not care to ask. Numbers do 
not enter into the perplexity and pain with which I 
am to confront the problem of man's eternal destiny. 
It is not a question of arithmetic; it is a question of 
morals. It is a question of paternal treatment. I 
could hold my judgment in suspense if I were deal- 
ing only with prophetic and apostolic testimony. 

There is but one witness whose words I dare not 
deal with as rhetorical and exaggerated. It is the 
testimony of Jesus Christ, which checks my specula- 
tion. And He checks me because His tone is so in- 
tense. My dread of their possible ruin is as a point 
in an infinite line, as a single drop in all the seas, when 
measured against His. It is the authority of infinite 
and self-sacrificing love which makes His work final 
to me. And He tells me that there is an outer dark- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

ness from which the soul never emerges, a second 
death from which there is no resurrection. The soul 
may fall into hopeless ruin. It may defy all that in- 
finite mercy can do to win to holiness and heaven. 
I am sure that the doom is reluctantly permitted. It 
is not a positive infliction in the form of external 
penalty. It is not endless physical torture, nor endless 
conscious mental suffering. It is death. It is the 
soul's collapse, is eternal wreck and ruin. The ut- 
most that God in Christ can do is done to prevent it. 
It is the awful exception in the divine economy, and 
however few the graves in which dead souls are 
buried, the divine pity will never cease to canopy 
them. So it is not God of whom I am afraid. He 
will not be false to His fatherhood. I am afraid of 
myself, lest sin unrepented of and unremoved work 
eternal death to me. Save us. Lord, from ourselves, 
in Thy compassion. 



Athanasius and the Incarnation. 

There never was a fiercer nor a more protracted 
theological conflict than the one which, more than 
fifteen hundred years ago, Athanasius conducted. He 
was born in the year 299, and died in the year 373, and, 
during the forty-five years of his Alexandrian episco- 
pate, the intensity of his doctrinal struggle never 
abated for a moment. He was short in stature and in- 
significant in appearance. But in keenness and vigor 
of thought he was more than a match for his opponents. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

He may almost be said to have fought single-handed, 
so that ''Athanasius against the world'' passed into 
a proverb. The ecclesiastical and political odds against 
him were tremendous. Five times was he driven into 
exile, but no suffering could break his superb courage, 
and when he died the victory rested with him, a vic- 
tory whose laurels fifteen centuries have not withered. 
To all who sought to dissuade him he had one reply. 
*'Our all is at stake,'' was his answer. Time has 
proved that he was right, and Christendom has been 
and is as much indebted to him as to Augustine or 
Martin Luther. I am not sure but more. 

For the controversy in which he was the most con- 
spicuous figure concerned a theme more vital and fun- 
damental than those which engaged the attention of 
later theologians. Augustine grappled with the doc- 
trine of sin and grace; Anselm pondered the nature 
and the necessity of atonement; Luther emphasized 
justification by faith; Calvin made prominent and 
luminous the sovereignty of God ; Wesley made regen- 
eration a conscious experience of saving grace. 

Athanasius is properly called the father of theology, 
because the one theme to which he devoted his extraor- 
dinary powers was the Deity of Jesus Christ, which 
he vindicated by the most luminous exposition of 
Scripture, and the keenest philosophical argumenta- 
tion. Not that he created the faith, but he vindicated 
it so triumphantly that it has never been seriously 
assailed since. It is sometimes said that in theology 
nothing is ever settled. But some things are settled, 
and have been settled for many centuries. There is 
no church anywhere which would not be instantly 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

and universally repudiated as entitled to the name 
of Christian if it should deny the unity of the person- 
ality of God. And there never has been a period when 
the overwhelming majority of Christian behevers has 
not with equal emphasis repudiated any estimate of 
Jesus Christ which made Him less than God mani- 
fested in the flesh. The Greek Church, the Roman 
Catholic Church, Protestantism in all its great divi- 
sions, Lutheran and Reformed, all occupy the same 
ground here. They insist with Athanasius that not 
only is God revealed in Jesus Christ, but that God 
is incarnate in Him. It has often been flippantly said 
that the Nicene theologians fought over a single letter. 
Yes, they did; but the presence or absence of that 
single letter carried in it the tremendous difference 
between Christ as a creature and Christ as God. The 
presence of that letter affirmed His likeness to God, 
which is true of every man; the absence of that letter 
affirmed Christ's identity with God, which is true of 
no creature. That was the heart of the great con- 
troversy. In the course of it many things were said 
which have not commanded acceptance, and phrases 
were put into creeds which later confessions have 
omitted as unauthorized; but that Christ, in the in- 
divisible unity of His person was, and forever remains, 
true God and true man, has been and remains the 
clear, explicit and unwavering confession of the Chris- 
tian church. 

The mystery of the incarnation still remains, and 
no age has been more prolific of earnest thought upon 
it than our own ; but the fact of the incarnation has 
not been a question of internal doubt or discussion 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

since Athanasius conducted the argument to its close. 
I know of no modern heresy on this theme which 
was not suggested during the century in which 
he Hved, and which was not of intellectual athletes, 
and no controversy was ever conducted to so speedy 
and satisfactory an issue, and the men who, in modern 
times, have challenged the faith of the church in 
Christ as God incarnate, have only reproduced the 
sophistries which Athanasius exposed and riddled. 
Of many things it has been said that they are the 
articles of a standing or falling church. There is but 
one such article. Christ has told us what it is, when 
He told Peter, who had just confessed Him to be the 
Son of the living God, that upon this rock He would 
build His church, eternally secure against the most 
violent assault. 

The incarnation is the bedrock of our Christian 
theology, and here we can permit no hesitant con- 
fession on the part of those who claim to represent 
the Christian faith. Our all is at stake at this point. 
With the incarnation we have everything. Without 
the incarnation everything goes out into the night of 
uncertainty. We may still be theists and believe in 
God; but we cannot be Christians, in any true and 
deep sense, when Christ loses His eternal Divine dig- 
nity. The incarnation is not merely one doctrine 
among many. It is the central and creative concep- 
tion of the Gospel. ''What think ye of Christ ?" is the 
question which goes to the very roots of Christianity. 
The answer to that question determines the answer to 
every other question. 



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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

The Incarnation and Sin. 

We are born sinners, it is said. We are tainted 
before birth. We start with a corrupt nature. Are 
we born sinners, then, in the same sense in which we 
are born with blue and brown eyes, with a fair or a 
dark skin? Is sin an involuntary twist in our moral 
constitution? If that be true, then my moral deform- 
ity is no more reprehensible than my physical deform- 
ity. Physical deformity may be repulsive, but you do 
not punish men for it. You pity them. And it must 
follow that moral deformity may be repulsive ; but if it 
be con-natural, hereditary, ingrained, involuntary, 
God ought not to punish me for it. He should pity 
me. Not one of us can be held responsible for a cor- 
ruption in which the first cell from which we sprang 
was steeped. 

Now, then, what has the Incarnation to say to all 
this? Christ had a body, with all its constitutional 
appetites and instincts ; but it never became the occa- 
sion of sin to Him. And so we conclude that sin is 
not to be explained by the fact that we have bodies. 
Again, Christ shared with us all the limitations of our 
physical, mental and moral nature. He grew in stat- 
ure, in wisdom, in favor with God and man. He 
learned to walk, to speak, to read as we do. His 
understanding developed. He advanced in piety. But 
He never sinned. There were no moral mistakes or 
blunders in His life. And so we conclude that sin is 
not to be explained by the fact that we are limited in 
our powers. In our limitation we may be, and are 
bound, to pursue our integrity, even as He did. All 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

that comes to us by ancestry and environment came to 
Christ. If original sin is our guilt by imputation of 
Adam's apostasy, or if our nature is morally corrupt 
by ancestral heritage, these things must be as true of 
Christ as they are of us. You remind me that Christ 
was miraculously begotten and born, that He had no 
human father. What difiference does that make? 
Joseph was not, it is true, His father; but Mary's 
father was His grandfather, and from His grandfather 
on to Adam His lineage, paternal and maternal, was 
exactly what ours is. He had a human mother. He 
was not created ; He was born. He was born of Mary's 
bone, and blood of her blood, and Mary was a sinner. 
Whatever moral corruption flows through ancestral 
lines, it submerged Him as it submerges us. His 
ancestral heritage was neither more nor less than 
yours and mine. His share in original sin, as deter- 
mined by descent, was identical with our own. His 
environment was that of a country town, whose repu- 
tation was unsavory. They were not pure streets on 
which He walked. They were not pure schools which 
He attended. They were not pure men with whom 
He came in contact. It was a wicked world in which 
He grew up. But He was sinless from the start, and 
all the way through. Whatever came to Him by way 
of heritage, did not crystallize into sin. He was the 
holy child at birth and before. Whatever there was 
unfavorable in His circumstances did not surprise Him 
into sin. And so we conclude that men are not sinners 
because they are born so, nor because of their un- 
favorable environment. Sin is not a matter of either 
inheritance or circumstance. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Mark, I do not say that men cannot be born sin- 
ners. The beginnings of moral hfe are beyond our 
conscious location. But it is one thing to say that 
sin may be present at birth, or even before, and quite 
another thing to say that sin is due to birth. It is 
one thing to say that I sinned before I can now re- 
member, and a very different thing to say that I was 
the passive victim of the first stirring of sin. The 
first is true, the second is false and blasphemous. 
Sin was my voluntary action, no matter when it first 
appeared. It was I who sinned, not somebody or 
something in me. Christ was born, and born as we 
are. But He never knew sin. And so I conclude that 
birth makes no man a sinner. Sin is always volun- 
tary, spiritual, personal. It is in the will, and nowhere 
else. It is not in the blood, nor in any law of trans- 
mission. In a word, sin is not a constituent element 
in human nature. It was not so at the beginning, and 
it is not so now. Sin is the wilful perversion of human 
nature. Adam wilfully corrupted his own nature, 
and every one of us has done the same thing. 

The clear judgment of every honest conscience is 
that every man must bear the guilt and the shame of 
his own sin, for which neither his father nor his grand- 
father, nor Adam can be blamed. If Christ was a true 
man, sin cannot be any man's inevitable necessity. It 
can only be the guilt of his own will. Coleridge was 
right when he said that original sin is the only sin there 
is; that is, sin is sin, involving culpability and guilt, 
only, when it is original, having its sole cause in the 
individual sinner. It cannot be derivative, secondary, 
transferable. Its ruinous effects may be continuous. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

It may weave snares and dig pitfalls. It may make a 
life of virtue so hard that effective resistance may be 
hopeless. The consequences of sin may constitute a 
calamitous heritage, crushing the soul at the very be- 
ginning of its moral career. But so far as this is 
true, no man can be regarded as responsible for it. 
He is responsible only for the voluntary consent of 
his will in his moral bondage. There, in the will, and 
there alone, is the seat of sin. Kant said a good will 
is the only good there is. And we may add that a bad 
will is the only bad there is. Aside from that there is 
nothing common or unclean. The only bad thing in 
man, the only bad thing in devils, is the bad will. 
Nature is not corrupt. Human nature is not corrupt. 
Human nature is good, only good, supremely and eter- 
nally good. Its corruption is simply its perversion, 
and its perversion is its facing the wrong way. Sin 
lies in the wicked use which we make of our bodies 
and souls, not in the bodies and souls as such. It is 
simply as John said, lawlessness, w^hich is chargeable 
to our wall and not to our nature. 

I know how deep this conclusion cuts, and how 
weighty its corollaries. But the true humanity of 
Christ, which was absolutely sinless and holy, will per- 
mit no other verdict than that sin is not due to the body, 
nor to our finiteness, nor to any ancestral inheritance 
and educational environment. That holy human life 
proves once for all that birth does not involve moral 
contamination, and that human nature is not, and can- 
not be, corrupt by ancestral inheritance. Human 
nature, whether created or derived through birth, is 
good ; it is the evil will which is the source of sin, and 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

that alone, and that evil will it is which turns every 
good gift of God into a curse. It is the evil will which 
abuses the body, and the collapse of the body under 
such treatment shows the ingrained hostility of the 
body to such abuse. From every nerve-fiber comes up 
the pathetic appeal, ''Don't use me that way!'' It is 
the evil which makes the house a hell, and which lets 
loose the hounds of war. I tell you, the world, in- 
cluding human nature, is good. Only man is vile, and 
he is vile only by his evil will. That is, the only 
Satanic and damnable thing there is under God's stars, 
and for its presence in him every man is chargeable 
with the sole responsibility. Jesus Christ was not a 
sinner, and I have no business to be what He was 
not. It is a most startling conclusion, and for one, 
it fills me with keenest moral agony. It sweeps away 
every refuge of lies into which I would run to excuse 
my moral lapses. I am utterly without excuse, and so 
are you. My captivity is of my own surrender, and in 
that surrender I have become helpless. For the time 
to put on the brakes and reverse the lever is at the 
first signal of danger. It may be too late a second 
after. The first sin does the mischief, and who of us 
can locate that? It lies beyond the record which 
memory has made. It is, so to speak, prehistoric. But 
it was voluntary, and the evil will, having secured 
initial movement, laughs us to scorn ever afterward. 



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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

The Only Way of Escape. 

How extremely difficult the prevention of this in- 
itial movement of the will to sin is clear from the fact 
that in Christ only was it prevented, and in Him it 
was prevented because He was very God as well as 
very man. The prevention required all the moral 
omnipotence of God, the energy of the Divine will per- 
vading the energy of the human will. The man Christ 
Jesus was absolutely sinless, because in Him the full- 
ness of the Godhead dwelt bodily. Perhaps too much 
has been made of the argument proving the Divinity 
of Christ by His sinlessness. That does not follow. 
Gabriel is sinless and holy, but he is not God. The 
true order of thought is this : ''Christ was sinless. But 
sinlessness guarantees absolute veracity. A sinless man 
cannot deceive himself, and will not deceive others. 
Christ was sinless, and affirmed His equality with 
God. He must, therefore, be believed." But while 
the sinlessness of Christ is not the immediate proof of 
His Divinity, we have this fact, that of all the sons and 
daughters of Adam the only sinless man is the man 
in whom God is Incarnate. When we regard Christ 
simply as sharing our human nature with us. His sin- 
lessness compels the conclusion that sin is not our 
voluntary bondage; that w^e sin only because we will, 
not because we must. But when we consider that 
Christ shared our human nature with us under pecul- 
iar conditions; that His human nature was a God- 
pervaded and God-controlled human nature, and that 
only in this way did His absolute sinlessness emerge, 
we encounter another fact of tremendous import, the 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

enormous difficulty of initial holy self-direction. Adam 
was created upright and pure, a full grown man, acting 
deliberately in the face of earnest warning. Yet, at the 
first solicitation to disobedience, he sinned. If in him 
holy self-direction proved to be difficult, must it not be 
with us, born in the helplessness of childhood, with 
wills already self-perverted when moral consciousness 
awakens? The mystery of the will's initial self-direc- 
tion eludes me. It is the darkest of abysses. When 
and how I perverted my nature I know not. But I 
do know that it is self-perverted in me and in all 
men, and that the Man in whom God is Incarnate is 
the only exception to the rule. What follows ? This : 
That His is the only name under heaven whereby men 
must be saved. Infancy needs Him as much as man- 
hood. His redeeming might must save the children 
as well as the adults. He is the only gate into holi- 
ness and heaven. The lips which never opened on 
earth must sing the song of Moses and the Lamb. 
Without Him we can do nothing. As the branch can 
live only in the vine, so must we be engrafted with 
Him by faith, His Divine life purifying and perfect- 
ing our own. We must live in Him, and He must 
live in us. And we cannot begin too soon. Better in 
manhood than in old age; better in youth than in 
manhood ; better in childhood than in youth ; better in 
infancy than in childhood. Let us bring our babes 
to Jesus Christ, not only in prayer for them, but with 
them, in such sweet and winning words that their wills 
shall own His early sway. Jesus Christ has given to 
the world the secret of sinlessnes and moral perfec- 
tion ; a greater and more wondrous secret than any dis- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

covery of ancient or modern times. For, give us 
only holy men and women, give us only men and 
women who habitually and earnestly will to be holy, 
and this planet would be an Eden. 

And what is Christ's secret? It is the spirit of Son- 
ship. The whole of Christ's moral life was com- 
pressed into two words, *'My Father." He lived as a 
true Son, and that made Him every man's brother. 
That made Him the friend of publicans and sinners. 
That made Him pray for His murderers, and open 
heaven to the thief on the cross. '^Liberty, equality 
and fraternity." These are the great watchwords of 
our time. Christianity, we say, is the religion of uni- 
versal brotherhood. And we say true. But brother- 
hood is the fruit of Sonship. They are brothers who 
acknowledge a common fatherhood. The spirit of 
adoption is what the world needs, and it is the pe- 
culiar gift of Christ to men. By faith in Him we be- 
come the children of God. Here is the secret of vic- 
tory over sin. Christ's life was absolutely sinless, be- 
cause it was absolutely filial. Let us live as did He. 
Let us live and toil and suffer as the dear children 
of God. That is the narrow and blessed way which 
leadeth unto life eternal. 



Revolutionary Demands of Socialism. 

Sociology and socialism are two very different 
things. Sociology is the science of society, and as such 
it deals with facts, just as botany deals with plants 
and astronomy with the stars. But socialism cares 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

nothing for the stern facts which face us, and jauntily 
informs us that facts are not of much account, and 
that men can make any society they choose. Social- 
ism recognizes no law except the will of the majority, 
and practically only the will of the fourth estate, the 
proletariat, the men who have nothing and need every- 
thing, and therefore ought to claim everything. My 
own careful studies convince me that Dr. Robert 
Flint is not far out of the way when he says that 
socialism fights against industrial liberty, and advo- 
cates the regime of industrial slavery, when ''the peo- 
ple" shall appropriate all the products of labor and 
seize all the land and all the machinery of industry, 
and parcel out to every man the work which he may 
and must do, and the wages he is to receive. It is the 
old fight whether a man owns himself or whether the 
State owns him. Christianity and common sense teach 
that, under God, every man owns himself, and that 
law is the reasonable regulation of liberty, not its sup- 
pression. There are some who talk of Christian social- 
ism ; but you might as well talk of a round square or 
a hot iceberg. Socialism is not Christian, and Christi- 
anity is not socialistic. Christianity is the religion of 
individual liberty and of free co-operation, secured in 
Christ, and regulated by the law of Christ. 

The demands of socialism are revolutionary. While 
Socialists do not agree in their definition, there are 
certain economic doctrines which they maintain in 
concert, and advocate with ardor, creating widespread 
unrest and stimulating hopes which are doomed to 
bitter disappointment. For no rage of multitudes can 
for a moment annul or mitigate the laws which God 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

has incorporated in nature and in the soul of man. 
There are three main demands which socialists make, 
and I very much mistake if those who hear me do not 
agree with me, that in securing them civilization would 
go down in chaos and night. The three great assump- 
tions which characterize consistent socialism are, that 
labor is the sole constituent of value, that private 
property in land is a crime, and that the State should 
own and control all the machinery of industry. 

Is labor the sole element in value? It will occur 
at once, to one who soberly thinks about the matter, 
that labor must have something to work on. Labor 
cannot create the materials which it handles. It will 
do a man no good to saw the air with his arms ten 
hours a day, and then claim that because he has 
worked very hard, he ought to be liberally paid. 
Labor alone produces nothing. It is a factor in wealth, 
and a very important factor. Nature provides the ma- 
terials, without which labor could produce no wealth. 
Labor must not only have something to work on, but 
something to work with. It must have tools, be it a 
hammer, or a saw, or a shovel, or a printing machine, 
or the plant of a factory. It may be said that all this 
is coagulated labor. Very well, but it is coagulated 
labor which neither the individual laborer nor his 
class has produced, and it is generously placed at his 
disposal. He reaps where discoverers and inventors 
have sown. There is possible wealth in his productive 
work, because some men worked with their heads more 
than with their hands, — ^because they invented the loco- 
motive, and planned the steamships, and brought the 
instruments of industry to their present state. Labor 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

would be helpless without the coagulated brain of the 
world, which has had so much to do with the enormous 
increase of wealth. The man who turns the current 
on or off, and who handles the lever, has at his com- 
mand millions of invested capital, not one dollar of 
which he provided, and thousands of skilled workers, 
without whom his own work would be utterly unpro- 
ductive. In all the higher grades of industry it is 
the machinery which gives value to the product, not 
the man who handles the machine. But was not the 
machine made by somebody, and ought not the men 
who made the machine own it and get all the profit 
out of it? But who made the machine? Can every 
man who uses a hammer and turns a lathe make a ma- 
chine? Must you not have the inventor, and the 
draughtsman, and the superintendent of construction? 
These men, perhaps, work very little with their hands, 
but they work with their heads ; and in a world where 
heads are so necessary they have to be generously 
paid for. Labor must not only have something to 
work on, and to work with, but it must be under in- 
telligent direction. 

Collectivism is the doctrine that the State should 
own all the instruments of production, assigning to 
each man his work, and determining his wages. The 
mills, the railways, the merchant marine, the printing 
establishments of the country are to be owned and run 
by the State. Society must be reduced to one huge 
political machine, where every man holds an office and 
wears a uniform. How this is to be brought about 
we are not told. This is apparently a small matter in 
the judgment of these prophets and reformers. In- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

dividual proprietors are not likely to tumble over each 
other in order to make the State sole owner; and the 
State could not buy them out without creating a debt, 
the interest on which would bankrupt any nation; and 
the only method would be to confiscate all private prop- 
erty. This is exactly what socialists contend must be 
done; and so their millennium must be ushered in by 
one great act of legalized theft ! It passes my compre- 
hension that such an act of absolute tyranny should be 
heralded as the gospel of industrial emancipation. 
And then, when it has been accomplished, every man 
must do only what the State permits him to do. His 
personal preferences are to count for nothing. A com- 
mittee must pass upon his application ; and woe to him 
if he has no pull. Parents are to have no rights over 
their children; the State is to take charge of them. 
No books are to be printed, no papers are to be circu- 
lated, unless the committee approve. Churches, of 
course, must vanish, for the State cannot permit any 
independent voluntary associations. Our religion will 
be determined by popular elections, just as our bread 
and butter would be. But, then, suppose at some elec- 
tion all this collectivism should be overthrown — what 
then? For history teaches us that no flood of tyranny 
can quench the fires of liberty ; and collectivism is abso- 
lute, grinding, unqualified tyranny. That is the rock 
upon which socialism is doomed to go to pieces. For 
one I do not dread its triumph. It is too late in the 
day to clip the wings of freedom. Men are bound to be 
free — all men, those at the bottom and those at the top ; 
and no system has any hope of success which does not 
leave the individual perfectly untrammeled, so long 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

as he does not interfere with the freedom of others. 
Our bodies and our souls, under God, are our own, 
and we will let the lash come upon neither. Our homes 
are our own, and we will permit no king to rob us of 
them. Our industries and avocations are our own, 
and we will not let others choose them for us, or in- 
terfere with our management of them. Our churches 
are our own, and we will let no State cabal invade 
them. Our thoughts are our own, and we will speak 
or publish them without asking any man's leave. We 
make no idle boasts ; but the world is as ready to-day 
to do earnest battle for personal freedom as it ever 
was; yea, an hundredfold more so. And in no land 
under the stars is slavery of any kind less Hkely to come 
than on the free soil of the American Republic, with 
its double baptism of blood upon its broad acres. 
Youngest of nations, our flag is the oldest of national 
banners. And so long as the Stars and the Stripes 
are flung to the breeze, this republic will be a nation 
of freemen, jealous of liberty in thought and speech, 
in home, and shop, and temples of prayer. 



The Sacredness of the Sabbath. 

For more than eighteen hundred years the influence 
of the weekly Sabbath has been elevating and refining. 
It has brought rest to body and mind. It has deepened 
and strengthened the domestic affections. It has been 
the friend of the poor. It has eased the grinding yoke 
of toil. It has ennobled men by reminding them of 
their divine and eternal dignity. It was made for man 
as man, and therefore in the interests of humanity it 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

should be jealously maintained. I am not willing that 
it should be surrendered to a traffic which fills our 
jails, and almshouses, and insane asylums. Why 
should drunkenness be permitted to run riot on the one 
day when our streets should be radiant with peace? 
I am not urging the Divine authority for the Day of 
Rest. God has commanded us to keep holy one day 
in seven, and every man who believes in the God of the 
Bible must reverence His Sabbath. But I do not lay 
emphasis on this. For, however true this may be, 
the State is prohibited from legislating on religion, 
and, by implication, it is prohibited from legislating 
upon religious grounds. Much as I prize the Sab- 
bath, I do not want the State to enforce its recog- 
nition, because God has instituted it. But I do sub- 
mit that there are two considerations which make 
it imperative upon the State to maintain and guard the 
day of rest — its ancient and fundamental rank among 
our social inheritances, and the universally beneficent 
results of its observance. These entitle it to the re- 
spectful and reverent consideration of every true pa- 
triot and lover of his race. Ancient institutions should 
not be ruthlessly disturbed. The lines within which 
civilization has moved for thousands of years are 
presumably lines wisely laid. They have survived 
because of their fitness. The origin of the Day of 
Rest is lost in the depths of antiquity. Its birth cannot 
be located, either geographically or chronologically. 
It was already ancient when Moses wrote the Deca- 
logue, as the very phrase, "Remember the Sabbath 
day," implies; and the bricks of Mesopotamia tell the 
same story. It sprang up, no one can tell how, any 

i88 



' THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

more than the origin of the monogamic family can be 
located. The Sabbath is as venerable as the home ; 
and it has shared with the home, not only in antiquity, 
but in fundamental rank. Wherever the Christian 
home has become established the Christian Day of 
Rest has become naturalized. It has appeared every- 
where as an inseparable feature of the civilization 
which Christianity has created. The State does not 
emphasize the Divine origin of the home. It simply 
guards the family as an ancient and fundamental in- 
stitution, as one of the great and valued heritages of 
the past. For the same reason should the State guard 
the Day of Rest. 

We are bound, as sober and wise men, to resist any 
movement which cuts the threads by which we are 
related to all that is best and richest in the past. The 
Sabbath stands as one of the few great institutions 
which have maintained their places amid wars and 
tumults, amid the birth, decay and death of great and 
powerful empires. It is vandalism of the most reck- 
less type which is disposed to eliminate it from the 
public life of our time. We condemn the hands which 
mar the monuments of the Middle Ages, which have 
defaced the abbeys and the cathedrals; what shall we 
say of those who would trample the home in the mire, 
or for those who clamor for the aboHtion of the Day 
of Rest, demanding their right to change it into a 
wild and reckless revelry? Ancient institutions which 
show no sign of decadence, which maintain their vi- 
tality through successive generations and centuries, 
are entitled to reverent consideration, and arc not 
to be surrendered at the clamor of a clique. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Upon two things there should be no compromise: 
First, whatever changes are made in Sunday legisla- 
tion should be made in terms of universal enactment. 
Second, whatever changes are made in Sunday legisla- 
tion should be made in the interests of the mainte- 
nance, by law, of Sunday as the weekly Day of Rest. 
The first is demanded by the political autonomy of the 
State ; the second is demanded because of the antiquity 
and beneficent influence of the Christian Sabbath as 
a social institution. And both are demanded in the 
interests of public peace and prosperity. For liberty, 
without the safeguards of ancient and general law, 
is the corruption and death of all social order. And 
in the coming election (October, 1895), inasmuch as 
the platforms of both parties can easily be manipulated 
to mean anything and everything, and nothing in par- 
ticular, let us remember that laws are made in this 
State by members of the Assembly and of the Senate. 
Party affiliations should not bind us. They should 
snap as threads of tow when a question of general 
public morality confronts us; and the Day of Rest is 
one of the last things to be made the football of polit- 
ical contention. Vote for the man whom you know 
will maintain the decent observance of Sunday. If he 
belongs to your party, vote for him. If he belongs to 
the other party while your own party candidate would 
betray you, then vote for the other party, however 
much you may hate it. And if such a man is on 
neither party ticket, then vote for the other party, that 
your own party may be defeated and rebuked and dis- 
grace fastened upon the other party. For the main- 
tenance of the Day of Rest outranks the tariff, the 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

silver question, the negro problem, the Monroe doc- 
trine. It fundamentally affects our public morality, 
which we cannot afford to lower. Whatever the issue, 
I shall not despair; but I have spoken this plain and 
earnest word because I dare not be silent in such a 
crisis. 



Two Forms of Criticism. 

It is unfortunate that the words ''lower'' and 
''higher" have crept into use. Many regard them as 
invidious, and use them under protest. They are not 
properly descriptive. It were better if the first de- 
partment were known as "textual'' criticism, which 
would indicate the exact nature of the task set before 
it. And the second department should be divided into 
literary and historical criticism ; Hterary criticism deal- 
ing with the analysis of the books, and with the in- 
ternal evidences indicating their structure, authorship 
and time of appearance; historical criticism dealing 
with the external evidences supplied by various quota- 
tions and references to contemporary literature, in- 
scriptions, monuments and the like. 

It is to be regretted that so many of the Biblical 
critics are wanting in exact and comprehensive knowl- 
edge. They look with some disdain upon the students 
of archaeology, and they minimize the established re- 
sults. But problems of authenticity and of integrity 
cannot be determined by literary analysis alone. The 
problem is pre-eminently a historical one, and histori- 
cal evidence alone can solve it. Literary criticism 
cannot possibly determine by whom a book was writ- 

191 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

ten, and if it venture to cast doubt upon the clear and 
unequivocal statements in the book itself, denying them 
altogether, or reducing them to a minimum, it simply 
buries us in hopeless bewilderment. Then it is said 
that the Pentateuch does not claim to have been writ- 
ten by Moses. But the critics also grant that some 
things were written by him. And the frequent recur- 
rence of the phrase, 'The Lord said unto Moses,'' 
which runs like an unbroken thread through the Le- 
vitical legislation, could have been warranted only be- 
cause the tradition assumed authoritative form in his 
day. To discredit that testimony is to make the prob- 
lem hopeless of solution. When it is denied that the 
last twenty-seven chapters of Isaiah are from the pen 
of that prophet, the fact that the book of Isaiah has 
always contained them must be allowed to have some 
weight, and the most positive evidence must be pro- 
duced that the natural and inevitable influence of a 
single authorship is not only unwarranted, but con- 
tradicted by the plainest facts. It is a suspicious fact 
that they who deny the Mosaic authorship of the Pen- 
tateuch, and who declare Isaiah to be composite, can 
do no better than to assign it to some great unknown, 
and cannot even fix the time when he lived. The re- 
sult only gives us an indefinite number of Elohists, 
and Jahvists, and Deuteronomists, and Redactors, 
shadowy and unsubstantial figures, whose number 
even cannot be determined. The once famous Frag- 
mentary Hypothesis broke down under the weight of 
its arbitrary assumption, and it begins to look as if 
the present theory would be soon involved in the 
same fate. The evident unity of the books contradicts 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

the theory of mechanical composite structure. The 
scissoring and patching becomes bewildering. At all 
events, the result leaves us in a hopeless muddle, and 
when that is the only thing settled the proposed solu- 
tion is self-condemned. 

It has become the fashion to cast discredit upon tra- 
dition. But a traditional solution is better than one 
which leaves everything hanging in the air, which be- 
gins with guesses and ends in fog. The criticism of 
tradition is legitimate. It may be exaggerated, and it 
may be false, but whether tradition is exaggerated or 
false must be historically determined. Modern criticism 
simply assumes that tradition is not a competent wit- 
ness. Its voice is silenced. That is arbitrary, unscien- 
tific and unhistorical. Traditions are rarely, if ever, 
wholly fictitious and legendary. There is in them a ker- 
nel of historical truth, and the more widely traditions 
have gained currency the longer they have held their 
ground ; challenged or unchallenged, the more are they 
entitled to respectful treatment. Thus, it is only by 
tradition that we assign the first three gospels to the 
writers with whose names they are associated. Judged 
simply by their contents, they are anonymous. The tra- 
ditional account holds its ground for the simple reason 
that it cannot be discredited by equally good external 
evidence. So the Pauline epistles have the Pauline 
signature stamped upon and into them, and to discredit 
their Pauline origin demands evidence of the most posi- 
tive and overwhelming character. It is easy to deny 
authenticity and integrity, but the denial must be 
made good. The burden of proof is upon him who 
denies. He must show that in detail and as a whole 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

the traditional view is false. The grounds upon which, 
for example, the unity of Isaiah is denied are so shad- 
owy that they cannot be said to nullify the evidence 
that the book, so far as we know, has never existed in 
any other than its present form, and has always been 
attributed to Isaiah. The Pentateuch has always been 
credited to Moses, and Mosaic authorship is stamped 
upon every one of its parts, while not a particle of ex- 
ternal evidence can be produced against the universal 
tradition. The synagogue is not infallible, but the 
synagogue, from the first, regarded Moses as the great 
author of the Pentateuch, so that from the time of 
Ezra down this tradition is the only one invested with 
evidential authority. The tradition will hold its 
ground, and ought to hold its ground, until the critics 
do something more than substitute queries for facts. 



The Jews as Conservators. 

We are assured that no harm can result from the 
collapse of traditional view^s. Canon Driver solemnly 
declares that critical results do not destroy either the 
authority or the inspiration of the Old Testament. 
That declaration must be accepted as sincere. Whole- 
sale charges of irreverence and of infidelity do more 
harm than good. They are not true. No one can read 
what many of the higher critics have written without 
being impressed with their industry, learning, sincerity 
and reverence. But it must also be said that in many 
cases judicial temper is wanting. They deal in possi- 
bilities and probabilities. They approach the prob- 

194 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

lems with a prejudice against the traditional view, and 
with a depreciatory estimate of historical evidence. 
They assume that unless the traditional view can be 
proved, it must be regarded as false, or as at best an 
unsupported guess. vSilence at a certain point is con- 
strued as evidence to the contrary. Thus in many 
cases, there is a break in the testimony, at the year 79, 
when Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus ; and although 
at that period the tradition is definite and fixed, the 
absence beyond that period of positive evidence is con- 
strued as implying ignorance or doubt. But there is 
no evidence confirming that conclusion ; such evidence 
as there is is all in favor of the traditional view, so 
that the critical logic breaks down because it has noth- 
ing whatever upon which it rests. The choice must be 
between careful sifting of tradition and agnosticism. 

Professor Buhl of Leipzig shows a most commend- 
able temper of mind when he frankly concedes that 
the Jews must be regarded ''as the authority on the 
question of the Old Testament canon." The people 
of Israel, to whom the Old Testament revelation had 
been intrusted, and whose life task it was to preserve 
it uncorrupted, are in fact the legitimate and compe- 
tent judges when it has to be decided in what writings 
this revelation appears in purity and free from all for- 
eign and mortifying elements. That we are no longer 
in a position fully to trace out the principles which 
led the scribes to their determination regarding the 
canon, and that those principles which can still be un- 
derstood are in many cases extremely peculiar, cannot 
I)e regarded, as in this connection, of any iniportancf. 
For it is not with the views of the scribes that we have 

195 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

to do, but only with the favor shown to the Scrip- 
tures and their circulation among the people, of which 
the decrees of the rabbis as to the canon are simply an 
echo. The spread and recognition which the books 
had won in the genuinely Jewish community is the ma- 
terial which the scribes had to work in their own way ; 
but how they succeeded in this is only of secondary 
interest, while the firm position of the writings among 
the members of the community affords the special guar- 
antee that they recognized in them a true reflection of 
their spiritual life, and that those writings, therefore, 
must be accepted by us as the canonical means of 
learning ''to know that life." In a later part of the 
discussion Professor Buhl declares that the frequent 
charges of serious corruption in the text of the Old 
Testament are absolutely without foundation, and are 
discredited by the high reverence with which the 
Scriptures were treated. 

It is refreshing to note such a return to the his- 
torical temper. Its cultivation must issue in the modi- 
fication of many current critical judgments, and in the 
withdrawal of not a few. For while the historical 
evidence needs to be historically sifted, it cannot be 
ignored, especially when it is remembered that all the 
historical evidence there is is in favor of the traditional 
view. And that traditional view, as Buhl states, was 
not created and imposed by the scribes, but was simply 
recorded by them, as the sifted result of ancient, trans- 
mitted, national conviction. 

There is one fact which remains fixed and historic- 
ally assured in the bewildering debate, and which is of 
supreme and decisive importance to the Christian be- 

196 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

liever. Canon Driver is most emphatic in the state- 
ment that the same canon of historical criticism which 
"authorizes the assumption of tradition in the Old 
Testament forbids it in the New," and that "the facts 
of our Lord's life on which the fundamental truths of 
Christianity depend cannot be anything else than 
strictly historical." But the New Testament, and even 
the three gospels alone, will give us the present Old 
Testament with our Lord's indorsement of it as Scrip- 
ture. That will be enough for the plain Christian. 
He will conclude that he cannot do better than to use 
his Old Testament, as Christ used it, and that he need 
not hesitate to do so. 

The substantial identity, I am prepared to say, prac- 
tically absolute identity, of the present Hebrew Old 
Testament as Christ knew it is one of the clearest 
outstanding facts in the critical controversy. The de- 
bate, for the most part, concerns the period between 
Ezra, 450 B. C, to Moses, 1491 B. C, a little over 
a thousand years, whose contemporaneous memorials 
have perished in the ruthless wars of the captivities, 
and in the destruction of the temple by the Roman 
soldiers. But it is equally clear that long before the 
birth of Christ the present books of the Old Testament 
were regarded as Scriptures and inspired; were read 
regularly in the synagogues ; were classified as "Laws, 
Prophets and Psalms," bound up in rolls and jealously 
guarded, and were studied with a veneration border- 
ing upon superstition. The evidence is ample, massive 
and overwhelming. Soon after the destruction of Jeru- 
salem the learned Jewish rabbis established a colony 
and organized a famous school at Jamnia, which con- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

tinued in existence for sixty years ; and here, soon 
after the year 70, the present number and names of 
the books of the Old Testament were formally and 
officially promulgated. The list names twenty-four 
books, and includes every book in our present collec- 
tion; and it includes only these. The difference be- 
tween our list of thirty-nine books and the Hebrew 
list, which contains only twenty-four, is accounted for 
by the fact that in the Hebrew list I and H Samuel 
appear as one book, I and H Kings as one book, I and 
II Chronicles as one book, Ezra and Nehemiah as one 
book, and the twelve minor prophets as one book. The 
difference is purely one of numerical notation ; the 
actual contents are identical. 

Josephus, writing sixty years after Christ's death, 
about the year 90, gives the number and the classes of 
the Old Testament books, and speaks of them as long 
recognized and inspired. The passage has often been 
quoted, and is found in his tract against Apion, the 
eighth chapter of the first book. The number is spoken 
of as twenty-two, to make it correspond with the num- 
ber of the Hebrew alphabet, and this was done by com- 
bining Ruth with Judges and Lamentations with Jere- 
miah. That the Old Testament of Josephus was iden- 
tical with our own is evident from an examination of 
his history of the Jews, which draws upon all these 
books as authoritative sources of historical informa- 
tion. Even Jonah is embodied in the story. The force 
of the testimony of Josephus will appear when it is 
remembered that he was born in the year 37, only 
seven years after the death of Christ, and that his life 
covers the lives of the apostles Paul and John. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Testimony of Learned Jews. 

We can go back fifty years beyond Josephus. Philo, 
a learned Jew, writing during our Lord's life, and im- 
mediately after, quotes from nearly every one of our 
present books, and accords them inspired authority. 
He quotes from the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Sam- 
uel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, the minor prophets. 
Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Ezra and Chronicles. We can 
go back 200 years beyond Philo. He lived and taught 
at Alexandria. His philosophy was a mixture of 
Old Testament theology and Greek metaphysics. 
Alexandria had long been the home of many Jews, 
who gathered there after the dispersion occasioned 
by the first destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchad- 
nezzar, and made the city of their adoption a famous 
center of Jewish learning and religion. The Jewish 
colony had at an early day become Greek in speech, 
and the general neglect of Hebrew had made a Greek 
translation of the Old Testament necessary. This 
was begun 280 B. C., and finished about 150 B. C.; 
accepted as authoritative at least 200 years before 
Philo. Not one of our present books is missing in 
the Septuagint, though several others were inserted 
and added, which were under the name of Apocrypha, 
and are accepted as canonical and inspired by the 
Roman Catholic Church, but are rejected by Protest- 
ants and Jews. Many of us can remember these books 
as printed and bound up in our older Bibles, though 
occupying a separate section. 

Consider what these facts mean. Add 280 B. C, 
when the Greek translation was begun, to 1897, and 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

we have 2,iyy. During that long period the Old Tes- 
tament has been what it is now. It certainly is a 
modest claim that these books in the Old Testament 
must have been known, and in general circulation, 
one or two hundred years before 280 B. C, which 
brings us to the time of Ezra. In fact, we learn from 
the Proverbs of Jesus the son of Sirach, that in the 
days of his grandfather, 200 years before Christ, the 
division of the Old Testament into ''the law of Moses, 
the prophets and the Psalms" was already known, 
and in familiar use; and the use which the author 
himself makes of these books proves that the first and 
second parts of this division had precisely the same 
contents which they have now. The verdict of sober 
scholarship upon this point, now under consideration, 
and in which Kuenen, Corvill and Cheyne agree, may 
be stated in the measured words of Professor Sanday : 
''The canon of the law was practically complete at 
the time of the promulgation of the Pentateuch by 
Ezra and Nehemiah, in the year 444 B. C, and that 
of the prophets in the course of the third century 
before Christ. As to the closing of the third group, 
there is perhaps more room for difference of opinion. 
A common view is that the recognition of these books 
as Scripture would be no later than 100 B. C. All the 
books are quoted as authoritative in recorded sayings 
from Hillel onwards.'' And Hillel died four years 
before the Christian era — the year in which our Lord 
was born. This makes it incontrovertibly clear that 
the Scripture to which Christ appealed is our own 
Old Testament. That nail should be clinched. 

The concession of Professor Sanday is all the more 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

impressive because he concedes the documentary 
structure of the Pentateuch, the post exiUan date of 
its middle books, locates Deuteronomy in the age of 
Josiah, places many of the Psalms in the Maccabean 
time, and maintains the late dates of Ruth and Daniel. 
But he cannot resist the historical evidence that a 
hundred years before Christ the Old Testament, as 
we now have it, was universally regarded as inspired 
Scripture. And when it is remembered how jealously 
the Jews, 200 years before Christ, guarded their 
sacred writings, and what superstitious reverence they 
paid them, what recondite meanings Philo found in 
names and numbers, we must be permitted to believe ; 
and we cannot resist the positive conviction that those 
early students were better equipped to pass judgment 
upon questions of authorship and date than we are. 
Their emphatic and unanimous verdict is at least 
entitled to respect, even if they were not infallible. 
Between Ezra and David are only 600 years, and be- 
tween Ezra and Moses are only about a thousand 
years. Between us and David are three thousand 
years, between us and Moses are thirty-four hundred 
years, and the period is broken for us by the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem under Titus. But in the midst of 
that tumult stands the Old Testament, in substantially 
the same form in which we now have it, read in all 
the synagogues then as it is now, spoken of as Scrip- 
ture, regarded as inspired, accepted and quoted by 
Christ as authoritative. 

I am not aware that any scholar, with competent 
learning, however critical his attitude, would under- 
take seriously to call this statement in question. 

201 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Ewald, Strack, Stanley, Buhl, Delitzsch, Briggs, Rob- 
ertson, Smith, Reuss and Samuel Davidson concede it. 
Kuenen and Wellhausen do not challenge it. Even 
Vernes, who claims that no writing of the Old Tes- 
tament is of earlier date than Ezra, would not deny 
it. It is implied upon every page of the New Testa- 
ment, and the evidence is clear, ample and decisive 
that from the very first the Christian Church accepted 
in its entirety the Old Testament as it was read and 
honored in the synagogues and by the nation. 

The public life of our Lord was one strenuous, un- 
broken conflict with the Scribes and Pharisees, but 
He accepted the same Scriptures with themselves 
as a revelation from God. Paul broke with the syna- 
gogue in its theology, but for the ancient oracles he 
retained his undiminished and unqualified reverence. 
No criticism can shake that outstanding fact. The 
temple fell. The holy city crumbled into dust. The 
priesthood came to an end. Sacrifice ceased. One 
thing was neither burned nor buried. The Old Tes- 
tament, as we have it, survived the shock of Roman 
arms, and with Christ it maintained its imperial as- 
cendancy, gaining a new and universal constituency. 
For the notion advanced by some, that between the 
first century before Christ and the first century after 
Christ the Hebrew text was deliberately and seriously 
corrupted, is utterly without foundation ; and the clear 
testimony of Josephus, who lived in the latter century, 
falls like a trip hammer upon those who hint it. 

The only plausible qualification \vhich can be made 
is that in the time of Christ there was some uncer- 
tainty concerning certain books which belong to what 

202 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

is called the third canon of Scripture. Thus Robert- 
son Smith declares that the canon of law was complete 
450 B. C. ; the canon of the prophets 168 B. C, and 
that in the time of Christ, Psalms, Proverbs and Job 
were accepted as inspired Scriptures. That would 
leave out Esther, Ezra and Nehemiah, Ecclesiastes, 
Canticles, Daniel and Chronicles. Even these, he 
declares, were in existence and widely read ; only it is 
claimed that these were not decisively regarded as 
Scripture until the end of the first century of our era. 
And here again the explicit testimony of Josephus 
falls like a trip hammer upon the theory. But even 
granting it, it is plain that the bulk of our Old Testa- 
ment was in Christ's hands, and regarded by Him 
as Scripture. In our Oxford Bible the entire Old 
Testament covers 585 pages, and these disputed books 
cover only 89 pages; and their elimination would 
not alter a single feature in the history down to the 
time of Ezra. The evidence for our present Old Tes- 
tament, as indorsed by Jesus Christ, is simply amaz- 
ing, overwhelming, unanswerable. That settles the 
controversy for the believer in Christ. 



Evolution an Unproved Theory. 

In evolution, as an orderly development and ad- 
vance, every intelligent man believes ; and in that sense 
the doctrine is as old in literature as the first chapter 
of Genesis. But evolution, as a process of uninter- 
rupted differentiation of being, under natural laws, 
and from inherent forces, as an unproved theory, with 
all the evidence squarely against it. So long as that is 

203 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

true, I, for one, am not going to let evolution recon- 
struct my Bible for me. 

I claim that while in the realm of science evolution 
is an unproved theory, in the realms of literature and 
history it is demonstrably false. It is not true that the 
earliest literature of a nation is the crudest and its latest 
the best. It is not true that the line is one steady im- 
provement. This is not true of Greece, or Rome, or 
Germany, or France, or England, or the United States. 
Homer never had a competitor. Shakespeare and Mil- 
ton have not yet been eclipsed. Socrates, Plato and 
Aristotle are still unrivaled. Madison and Jefferson 
were not pigmies compared to our present statesmen. 
Washington is still without a peer. We are not more 
skillful builders than the men who reared the pyra- 
mids, nor are we greater architects than the men who 
designed and superintended the cathedrals. We have 
not eclipsed the old masters in painting, sculpture and 
music. Civilizations do not necessarily grow better 
as they grow older. Turkey, India and China prove 
the very reverse. They have been rapidly going down. 
A book on ''Degeneracy" a few years ago attracted 
wide attention. The picture was overdrawn. But the 
fact is that it requires the strenuous and continuous 
exertions of all good men to prevent things from be- 
coming hopelessly bad. The machines are everywhere 
and always against righteousness and improvement. 
Progress is not due to them, but to the men who break 
away from them. Thefe is one force in literature and 
in history of which evolution takes no account, and 
which it cannot explain. It is personality — strong, 
self-poised, determined personality. Again and again a 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

man appears who challenges the world to combat, and 
he wins. It may be Paul; it may be Athanasius; it 
may be Luther; it may be Jesus Christ. Such men 
are prophets of God and they inaugurate new epochs. 
They shatter prisons and set men free. They arrest 
the growing degeneracy and usher in the better days. 
They are not the product of blind and inherent evo- 
lutionary forces. One, at least, has defied every at- 
tempt at classification. He stands alone, unap- 
proached and unapproachable — the Son of Mary, the 
Carpenter of Nazareth, the Prophet of Galilee. Noth- 
ing in Greece, or Rome, or Judea explains Him. He 
was and remains the absolute antithesis of His time 
and of all times. Evolution goes to pieces when it 
touches Him. God is manifest when He appears. 
And what is true of Christ is true of every great 
leader who has appeared in history. Personality dom- 
inates in literature, in art, in history, in war and in 
peace. Carlyle may have gone too far in his hero 
worship, in his unstinted praise of great and energetic 
men. There is moral force, for good or evil, in the 
people, too; and we neglect that at our peril. 
Still it remains true that personality is the decisive 
force in history. And personality is the absolute an- 
tithesis of evolution. Unproved in science, demon- 
strably false in literature, art and history, the theory of 
evolution cannot be accepted as a canon of criticism. 
Certainly not at its demand shall I cease to believe 
and preach that God created man in His own likeness 
and image ; that man fell by voluntary transgression, 
and that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, died to 
save man, and rose again from the sepulcher. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Harnack and Literary Criticism. 

Events are moving rapidly (April 4, 1897). While 
our American preachers and editors are celebrating 
the triumphs of literary criticism, and busying them- 
selves with getting out a new Bible, the bugle from 
Berlin is sounding the call for a retreat all along the 
line. Nothing more noteworthy has appeared, in a 
hundred years, than Professor Harnack's first volume 
of his "Chronology of Old Christian Literature," fresh 
from the Leipzig press. No one will venture to ques- 
tion the author's scholarship. He is in the prime of 
life, and the bright particular star of the University of 
Berlin. He is the idol of Germany. No voice is more 
commanding in the leading seats of learning of Eng- 
land and America. In minuteness and breadth of 
historical learning he has no living equal. He is per- 
fectly at home in the entire Christian literature of the 
first three centuries. He is fearless and independent. 
His orthodoxy has been fiercely assailed, even in Ger- 
many. He follows Ritschl in insisting that metaphys- 
ics must be eliminated from theology. But he also 
protests against manipulating the facts of history in 
the interest of a preconceived theory. It is in this 
last domain that his last book inaugurates a new de- 
parture. 

Not the least remarkable part of the book is the 
preface. In it, Harnack sketches the present state of 
New Testament criticism, and announces the general 
conclusions to which his studies have led him. He 
declares that the attempt to sketch the origin and de- 
velopment of Christianity, by assuming that the New 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Testament books were ''a tissue of deceptions and 
frauds," and late in appearance, has utterly broken 
down. The school of Baur is dead. Tradition has 
been vindicated as true and trustworthy. Interest in 
literary criticism is waning, and historical studies 
are displacing it; ''the problems of the future lie 
in the domain of history, not of literary criticism," 
simply because tradition is right in its estimate of the 
literature. The significance of this verdict appears 
when it is remembered that the assumptions of the 
Wellhausen school, in the treatment of the Old Testa- 
ment, are identical with the assumptions of Baur, 
which Harnack emphatically discredits and repudi- 
ates. Significant is the confession of a Dutch theo- 
logian, to whom Harnack refers without naming him, 
that he had been ''compelled to believe in the super- 
natural origin" of Christianity. Harnack will not 
stand alone. He will carry the younger scholars with 
him, and the Old Testament critics will follow. That 
has been the order for two hundred years. In five 
years the retreat now begun may become a stampede. 

In the body of the work the most remarkable thing 
is the discussion of the chronology of the life of Paul 
It has come to be generally accepted that six years 
intervened between the death of Christ and the mar- 
tyrdom of Stephen ; and Paul's conversion has been 
located in the year 36. Holtzmann and Blass had 
placed it four or five years earhcr. Harnack sifts 
the evidence bearing upon llic date when Fcstus 1)e- 
came governor of Cesarea — tlic crucial chron()l(\gical 
])oint — and decides emphatically, with luisebius and 
Tacitus, that this took place in 55 or 56. Paul had, 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

at that time, been a prisoner for two years ; so that his 
arrest in Jerusalem falls in ^^ or 54. Combining 
now the data furnished in Acts and in Galatians, it 
appears that twenty-four years must be allowed be- 
tween Paul's conversion and his arrest in 53 or 54. 
This locates his conversion in the year 29 or 30 — the 
year of the crucifixion. And as a result, every one of 
the Pauline epistles is crowded back from four to six 
years : Thessalonians to 48 ; Galatians and Corinthians 
to 52 ; Romans to 53 ; Colossians, Ephesians, Philemon 
and Philippians to 56-58 ; the Pastoral epistles to 59- 
64, in which last year the apostle suffered martyrdom. 
The most startling fact in this criticism is the date 
of Paul's conversion. It had been assumed that the 
events recorded in the first nine chapters of Acts 
covered a period of six years. According to Harnack, 
the time must be measured by six or nine months ! 
The death of Christ and Paul's conversion are sep- 
arated by less than a year ! What a picture this gives 
us of the ferment of that time I Xo wonder the 
Dutch theologian was compelled to believe in a ''super- 
natural origin" of Christianity! Harnack propounds 
no theory. He makes no note or comment. But he 
plants himself squarely upon these early data, which, 
so far as I know, he has been the first to suggest. 
And we are surely getting very near Christ, when the 
man who wrote Galatians and Romans was converted 
in the year when Jesus was crucified ! For one, I am 
waiting to hear what European scholarship will have to 
say in reply. Harnack has done a bold thing ; but as 
I have read his pages, I have not been able to see where 
he is vulnerable; and the man who challenges his 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

verdict on a matter of history had better do a good 
deal of thinking before he writes. 

This book has stirred me to the depths. It seems 
to me that it marks the beginning of the end. 



What Must I Do to Be Saved? 

I take it for granted that those who Hsten to me 
are Christians, or want to be. I need not say that you 
ought to be. We are all sinners. We need to have 
a clear conception of Christ's life, death and resurrec- 
tion, and that His sacrifice shall avail for the pardon 
of our sins, and that belief in and service of Him shall 
give us a celestial and eternal inheritance. The ques- 
tion which marks a history, the turning point of all, 
young or old, men, women and children ; the question 
which goes deeper than any other is : What must I do 
to be saved? I want to give the Bible answer to that. 
We do not need speculation, or fancy, or theory. Your 
theories are as good as mine, and mine are as good as 
yours, and neither are good for anything. Your 
thoughts are not my thoughts, and mine are not yours. 
What you think I do not know ; what I think you do 
not know. 

Paul says: ''The things of God knoweth not any 
one.'' I go a step further. We have got what Jesus 
Christ thought, said, did. We have Him, the incar- 
nate Son of God. We have Him to answer the deep 
things of God. To the great question we want the 
Bible answer, the ancient answer, which is found 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

when we turn to the sixteenth chapter of Acts, thirti- 
eth and thirty-first verses, when Paul and Silas are 
being brought out of the jail, and the jailer tremblingly 
asks: ''Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" In many 
things Christian people may disagree, in questions of 
theology; church government — on a great variety of 
matters. It was so in the apostolic times; there were 
quarrels in the Church of Corinth ; but they said — 
the answer leaped to their lips instantly, and from 
that day to this, during the more than 1800 years, it 
has been the same : ''Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ 
and thou shalt be saved." 

Upon a rough examination of the New Testament 
we find that the word "believe" occurs fifteen times, 
"believe in Christ" eleven times, and "upon Christ" 
thirty-two times. The high water mark of intellect, 
heart and will we call faith. We are first summoned 
to believe in Christ, to have confidence in His integ- 
rity, because if He did not deceive Himself He would 
not deceive us ; to have the deep conviction that He 
says no more than He means, and that He means 
what He says. I wish that you knew the gospels 
by heart, from the first chapter of Matthew to the last 
verse of John. The gold of Ophir, the pearls of the 
sea, and the jewels of the mines are not to be com- 
pared to the sayings of Jesus. Shadows may lie upon 
the heart, I know. There are hard things in the Bible. 
But there are hard things in nature, in life. I see 
things every day that puzzle me more than the things 
T see in the Bible. Life is a serious thing. Life, as 
a serious thing, l)rings its hard problems. You and I 
do not know what to do or say sometimes in the face 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

of them. But Christ knows. BeHeve Him. I am 
content to intrust the destinies of man to Him whose 
hands were pierced and from whose side flowed the 
blood that was shed to save man. Believe Christ. 
Believe in Christ — that's coming closer. We are 
called upon not only to believe Christ, but to believe 
in Christ. The preposition ^'in" implies movement, 
going to Christ, and stopping when it gets to Christ. 

Faith is a personal relation to Jesus Christ, not 
membership in a church, not subscribing to a creed, 
not subscribing to a certain doctrine. It is coming 
to Christ and believing in Him. Believing in Christ 
is to believe in the one Man in whom dwells the full- 
ness of the godhead bodily. The miracle of the resur- 
rection and the moral perfection of Christ prove Him 
to be the Son of God. Christ says : "I and the Father 
are one." If you have seen Christ you have seen God. 
Do you believe in Christ? Then you must rest in 
Him. You can't rest on anything else. There are 
two alternatives in regard to the judgment we pass 
upon Christ. Either He was a deceiver, the most 
blasphemous deceiver that ever lived, or He was the 
eternal Son of God. Criticism hereafter must choose 
between two things — either Christ was the most 
wickedly blasphemous man that ever lived, unworthy 
of homage from any one of us, or He was the Son 
of God. We are summoned to believe upon Christ. 
The preposition ''upon" is not one of movement, but 
one of adhesion. 



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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

The Lamp of Life. 

We arc seeking for an answer to this question: 
What is the Bible? And the first answer is that it is 
a book. It is the only book to which no other name 
is given, and when you say ''the Bible" you simply 
say ''a book.'' But it is one book among many; it is 
the book par excellence. It is the crown and the con- 
summation of the world's literature; there is nothing 
to be compared with it. It stands head and shoulders 
above everything else. It is a unique book in its 
composition. Most books, and the best books, are 
written by single authors. I have generally noted 
that the more authors there are in a book the poorer 
it is. I don't take much stock in literature made by 
combination. The books which have had the largest 
influence in the world are those on which men 
wrought a great many years. Butler's ''Analogy," 
for instance, was the result of thirty years of elabora- 
tion. The Bible extends not merely over a single gen- 
eration, but over centuries — 2,000 years, part of it. 
The hands of men wrote it; the hands of men com- 
piled it; the hands of men translated it; the hands of 
men transmitted it. It is a human book all the way 
through, in language and in thought, and in form, 
and in substance, every fiber of it. Please make a 
note of that. It is divine, too, in every fiber of it. 
You cannot pick it to pieces and say : "This belongs to 
man and that to God." It all belongs to man. It is 
a human product with a divine soul. 

The Bible deals with facts and with nothing else; 
.deals with realities and with nothing else — realities of 

212 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

time and eternity, realities of God and the soul. It is 
intensely real literature because it is intensely per- 
sonal. It does not tell you anything about the stars 
or the sea; nothing about theology; it does not teach 
anything about things, but it teaches a great deal 
about persons. It is reality aflame. If there ever was 
a book full of facts, and only facts, it is the Bible. 

The Bible is a book which has commanded frorn 
the first a peculiar veneration. Whether you have 
this or not does not make much difference. Men 
have believed that it was an inspired book, that it 
is an infallible authority upon the great theme with 
which it deals. Over and over again, during these 
three or four thousand years, this claim on behalf of 
the Bible has been disputed and assailed; but in spite 
of all that the book has held on its way. There never 
was a keener critic than Ewald during the present 
(nineteenth) century, and yet in a conversation he had 
with one of our American scholars he placed his 
hand upon a little Greek Testament that he always 
carried with him, and, speaking in the German tongue, 
said: ^'My friend, this book contains all the wisdom 
of the world.'' 

The Bible has proved itself to be the mightiest of 
all moral agencies for the advancement of the world. 
Men who through it know their rights, and dare to 
maintain them, aflame with the passion for righteous- 
ness, become leaders of their day and generation. It 
is thought that rules the world. The pen and the 
tongue are mightier than the sword. Never were 
there such mighty men as the prophets and the apos- 
tles. Wherever this book has gone it has found a 

2T3 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

welcome, it has wrought its beneficent ministry. It 
is the only book that finds a welcome everywhere. 
It is the only book that has been translated into all 
the languages known to the world. It was the first 
book — do you note that — the first book ever printed. 
The first that came from the printing press in Europe 
was the Bible. No book has been multiplied as this 
has been. It is the only book in all the history of the 
world's literature that has had formed on its behalf 
a voluntary society for its free distribution ; and wher- 
ever it has gone it has proved itself to be a tree of 
life, the eating of whose fruit has brought a bene- 
diction. 

These things are just as plain as the stars to-night, 
just as plain as the sun at noon-day; the Bible is a 
book ; it deals with reality ; it has commanded a singu- 
lar veneration; it has been the mightiest of all moral 
agencies in the advance of the world. This is ex- 
traordinary whether 3^ou believe its miracles or not; 
this is the extraordinary and the inevitable conclu- 
sion that there must be some extraordinary reason 
for it. Water never rises higher than its level; the 
cause must be adequate to the effect. And, therefore, 
these men, whose words have come like fire into the 
world, and burned their way through the heart of 
great evils, have a right to speak for themselves, and 
to be heard in their own behalf. None of these writers 
claim any originality. They don't claim the merit of 
being discoverers; in fact, they do the very reverse — 
they disclaim all originality and all discovery. They 
call themselves prophets; that is a term of humility. 
It was not prediction that constituted the peculiar qual- 

2T4 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

ity of the prophets of the Old Testament. The word 
prophet simply means one who speaks for another, 
one who does not say anything on his own behalf; 
one who takes his message from another. They spoke 
as the prophets of God. They were men who saw. 
When you look into the heavens at night you do not 
create the stars. These men simply had open eyes, 
and God lifted the veil from time and eternity. A 
qualification must be made; they did not pretend to 
speak of all that God knows. There is a great deal 
of knowledge outside of the Bible, a great deal of 
truth, and a great deal of sacred history. It does not 
undertake to tell us everything that God has done in 
the past, or will do in the future — only a very small 
fraction of it. These men spoke for God; they see 
what He has revealed to them, and what they teach 
has to do with the important question of your salvation 
and mine. That is the whole of it. Precept and 
promise, biography and history — all centered on this 
point. And, therefore, it is that the Bible is frag- 
mentary literature, if you expect to find a complete 
chronology. But it does not claim to be anything of 
the kind. If you expect to find here a finished sys- 
tem of astronomy, it may be said that the Bible was 
not written for that purpose ; if you expect to find a 
thoroughly articulate theological system, it was not 
written for that purpose; none even as concerning 
ethics, or moral conduct, in an elaborate form. But 
you will find a complete and an exhaustive statement 
in the Bible of what God lias done, and is doing, and 
will do to save men from tlieir sins. 

There are two questions that this book always deals 

2^S 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

in: First, What has God done to save me? and sec- 
ond, What must I do to be saved? What is the an- 
swer? What has God done to save me? This is a 
true and faithful saying, and worthy of all accepta- 
tion, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sin- 
ners. What must I do to be saved? Believe on the 
Lord. And so you come to the Bible. 



The Attributes of God. 

Who is God? Taking it for granted that we are 
theists, that we believe in the separate, independent, 
conscious personal existence of a living God, and in 
one living God, I assume His distinct, eternal, sover- 
eign personality, and I do it for the simple reason that 
I plant myself unreservedly and leave no question 
whatever upon the statements of the Bible. There is 
nothing in all the Scriptures, from the first verse to 
the last, upon which such constant emphasis is laid as 
the eternal reality and independence of the personal 
being, God. He is described as a thinking, a feeling, 
a willing, a speaking, a fulfilling, an acting being. 
Every form of emotion is affirmed to exist in Him — 
pity, sorrow, surprise, anger, regret, love. He is 
represented as the searcher and beholder and the ruler 
of all things. He is declared to be absolute and eter- 
nal, independent of everything else. The whole uni- 
verse hangs from His hand by a slender and invisible 
thread. Our life is written in Him ; His life is not 
written in us. He is in all things by His creative and 
sovereign activity; but in His personal being He is 

216 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

absolute, independent, self-contained. The whole uni- 
verse has taken nothing from His eternal and inde- 
pendent personality, and the whole universe, material 
and spiritual, can add absolutely nothing to it. This 
is no speculation. This lies in the heart of the Scrip- 
tures. 'Tn the beginning God'' — that is the way it 
reads, and every sentence which follows vibrates with 
that sublime affirmation. All the world is the work of 
His creative mind, and is upheld by it. 

This truth is carried into that answer which the 
Lord gave to the woman of Samaria : ''God is a Spirit." 
There are four words there. Jesus did not use the four, 
however, but two. The verb is in italic; it does not 
belong there; and the last noun, ''Spirit/' in the origi- 
nal, is without the article "a." So that it stands "God — 
Spirit." But the word spirit sometimes means breath, 
sometimes life, sometimes other things. The form here 
is that God in His essential being is life — life from 
core to circumference. There is no more masterly 
summary of what this declaration that God is a spirit 
means than Psalm cxxxix. He is omniscient, omni- 
present, omnipotent. None can resist Him. It is the 
simplest definition and answer to our question ; but it 
touches only the metaphysical qualities of His being. 

We come to a richer answer, which touches the 
question more deeply, when we consider what and how 
much the Scriptures have to say about the wisdom of 
God. The works of the Lord are marvelous, not be- 
cause the sum of them is so vast, but because in wis- 
dom He has made them all. He never does a foolish 
thing. There are no blunders and mistakes and mis- 
fits. He is patient. His patience is simply His wis- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

(loin. Associated with this idea of the divine wisdom 
is the absolute, unqualified truthfulness of God. He 
cannot lie ; He cannot deceive. He is transparent in 
everything that He says and in everything that He 
does. So far as He has revealed Himself it is not 
difficult to understand Him. He says what He means 
and He means what He says. He is never guilty of 
treachery, the vice wdiich receives the severest con- 
demnation, both in the Old and New Testament. The 
Bible finds the root of this veracity, this truthfulness, 
in God's eternal and absolute moral purity. He is light, 
and in Him is no darkness at all. That is the reason 
He speaks true ; that is the reason He acts true. The 
fiber of truth runs into the inmost recesses of His 
moral nature. He is nothing but truth. He is eter- 
nally consistent with Himself, so that the name given 
to Him in the Old Testament is Jehovah. 'T am that 
I am, and never change. What I was I am now ; what 
I am now I will be forever." Eternally consistent 
with Himself; it is the equivalent of holiness. In 
the Scriptures this declaration is preached with 
incessant constancy and emphasis — the immaculate 
personal holiness of God. That is the glory before 
w^hich seraphim fall on their faces. It is that which 
constitutes the energy and the active force of what we 
call His justice. He cannot overlook wrong-doing. 
He must pvmish the rebellious and the wicked. That 
necessity is fixed upon Him by the moral perfection 
of His nature. He is the consuming fire, and the 
stubble and the chaff must go to ashes. He hates sin, 
and He hates the man who sins. You cannot separate 
them. It is folly to talk about hating sin and loving 

218 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

the sinner. You may love him so far as the possibilities 
of his deHverance are concerned, but you cannot punish 
the sin which a man does without laying the strokes 
on the sinner. And yet while God hates sin, He does 
not hate the sinner in the sense that He does not want 
to deliver him from that which is his curse and ruin. 
He still loves him with infinite compassion. There 
never were sweeter words than ''Our Father," and 
there are times when I hardly dare to say them. But 
if Jesus Christ dwell in your heart by faith, the fellow- 
ship will become so close that the immaculate holiness 
of God will be your ultimate possession. That is what 
redeeming grace means. 



What is Man? 

There are three methods which are open to us in 
the attempt to answer the question. What is Man ? or 
What am I ? First, is the method of observation ; 
second, the method of self-inspection, and third, the 
method of revelation. We may look out, we may look 
in, and we may look up. We may use our eyes, we 
may proceed to examine our own souls, and we may 
listen to what God has to say. Let us begin with the 
simplest method and step by step proceed to those 
things which are most important and far reaching. 
Let us use our eyes. We shall conclude, as is most 
evident, that man is the most highly developed animal 
in the order of nature. He shares with the brute crea- 
tion instincts and passions ; his body is built upon the 
same model as theirs ; it is subject to the same laws 

2iy 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

of growth, decay and death ; it is nourished by the 
same elements and substances, and breathes the same 
air. He is, as said, simply the highest order of animal 
tenanting the planet. 

And yet there are three things which distinguish 
him even as an animal. First, he stands and walks 
erect ; he creeps when he is an infant, and stoops when 
he is old. In the second place, what strangely differ- 
entiates man from all other animals — a patent and an 
impressive fact, by the way — is his nakedness at birth. 
He comes into the world without any provision what- 
ever for protection from exposure to the extremes of 
heat and cold. The seal has its fur, the ox its hide, 
the bird its feathers ; but every man wants garments 
to protect him. In the third place, and this is the 
most remarkable thing in the differentiation, man is 
the only animal that uses fire. So he is a cook as well 
as a tailor. Reptiles, birds and beasts fly from fire as 
from, their bitterest enemy ; man alone grasps it in his 
hands, and holds it as the most valuable of his ser- 
vants. He has used it from the dawn of civilization. 
One can almost mark the steps of his progress by the 
larger use he has made of this element. It is seen 
strikingly in our manifold industries. 

There are certain minor and minuter characteris- 
tics which give to man a place peculiarly his own. 
He is the only animal that has a hand. The monkey 
has not a hand ; it is really a foot in its structure, and 
in the purposes for which it is used — leaping and 
running. You cannot use your hands in that way. If 
you think you can, just try it to-morrow, putting them 
in your shoes and walking across the bridge. But 

220 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

they were never made for the purpose of locomotion. 
Another characteristic which gives to man a pecuHar 
place as an animal is this : He laughs. Alone of all 
the animal tribes, he possesses the muscles which con- 
tract into a smile; and it is the power of laughter 
which gives to the face its infinite mobility of expres- 
sion. The cat will hump its back and hiss ; the dog 
will show its teeth and snarl ; the horse will prick up its 
ears and kick; but it is the face in man which is the 
index of his emotions, and it is only upon his face 
that the sunshine ripples ; it is only from his lips that 
there falls the ringing laughter. And yet, when all has 
been said, it still remains true, as the result of observa- 
tion merely, that man is only a highly endowed ani- 
mal. He is born, he comes to manhood's estate; then 
the infirmities of age creep upon him. By and by the 
breath leaves his body, and you bury him out of sight. 
Let us next turn our eyes inward. Let us pursue 
for a little while the method of self-inspection. It 
is a marvelous power which we possess that we can 
be both subject and object at once, speaking and listen- 
ing. The same being, and capable of interrogating 
ourselves, and in the very act of asking questions 
secure an answer to them. Our point of departure is 
to be found in those qualities by which the speech of 
man is distinguished from that rude communication 
which animals have with each other of their own kind. 
Properly speaking, however, the animals have no such 
thing as language. They have only a few emotional 
cries — of alarm, of welcome, of pain, of pleasure, of 
hostility, of friendship. The most salient character- 
istic of man's speech is that it has a living center from 

221 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

which it proceeds, and to which it ever returns. That 
center is the third of the five vowels — I. It never 
dropped from the stars, it never leaped from the depths 
of the ocean, it is not heard in the roll of the thunder, 
it is not articulated by the shock of the earthquake, it 
never fell from the throat of songsters in the sky. 
You say it a hundred times in a day. It is the most 
wonderful thing that you utter — that personal pro- 
noun I. It is the one thing that holds itself stead- 
fast and immovable amid all changes, physical, mental 
and moral. When I say ''I think," I know^ that I am 
thinking, not some one else. It is I who make the 
choice. I am, therefore, self-conscious and free. I am 
self-centered as well as self-conscious. I have the 
power of personal preference. The brute displays no 
moral sense. It does vicious things sometimes, and is 
killed. It is not, however, held to moral responsibility 
for anything ill it does. Man moves on an entirely 
different plane. He feels that he is under obligation 
to bring the corresponding animal passions and in- 
stincts which he sees in the brute creation under the 
sway of reason : To put them in leash ; to force the 
bridle into their teeth and hold fast to the reins at any 
cost; to subdue them by the power of the conscience 
within him. It is his business to do it. People talk 
about living according to nature. Yes, let the flower 
live according to its nature ; let the beasts of the forest 
live according to their nature, and let man live acord- 
ing to his. The lusts of the flesh war against the soul. 
The highest and best must not be trodden under foot 
b}' that which is low, but all evil nuist be brought into 
subjection. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

When man comes to investigate himself he discovers 
that the truest definition of What is Man? is that he 
is a personal, rational being, carrying the law of his 
life within himself as imposed by the reason ; self-con- 
scious, self-directing, self- judged. Self-inspection 
will carry us no further than this. We come to some- 
thing of even greater importance when we hear what 
the Scriptures declare concerning man at the creation. 
He was made in the image and in the likeness of God, 
and the record tells also how this was done. The 
breath of life was breathed into his nostrils and he be- 
came a living soul. In his essential constitution he is 
spirit. The body is only a bandage. From our origin 
and constitution, then, it follows that we must live as 
personal beings. Our fellowships and friendships must 
be personal fellowships and friendships. A life of 
prayer, a life of loving intercourse with God, a life of 
obedience to Him — that, my friends, makes the sweet- 
est life that a man can enter into. 

The instinct for immortality, which is another pecu- 
liarity of man, is in every human breast. You find it 
in the lowest and in the highest. All literatures are 
full of it. Life immortal ! It is not a gift bestowed 
upon me and not upon others ; it is not a blessing 
which God has secured for us, but it is a problem 
which He has solved, and it is a question which He, 
once for all, has answered. Let us be striving for the 
riches that can never perish ; let us be ambitious to 
gain the crown that shall never fade. 



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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Who is Jesus Christ? 

No one can answer the question ''Who is Jesus 
Christ?" except Jesus Christ Himself. That Jesus 
Christ has done. But men have not been content to 
take Him at His own estimate, and have subjected His 
testimony to criticism. And the moment a suspicious 
or critical attitude is assumed to Jesus Christ He be- 
comes a psychological riddle and a historical enigma. 
Nor is this surprsing. Without sympathy, men can- 
not be understood. Love need not be blind. But 
suspicion always distorts the judgment. Beside, no 
man reveals all that is in him, and the best that is in 
him, to one whom he has reason to distrust, and whose 
confidence he has not won. The knock of distrust 
upon the door of the heart brings no response. The 
door remains locked and bolted. The man who does 
not believe in Jesus Christ makes it impossible to form 
a consistent and satisfactory estimate of Him. And 
hence I shall completely ignore the answers which have 
been given to the question by those who have assumed 
a critical attitude to Jesus Christ, or to those to whom 
we are indebted for such knowledge of Him as we 
have. For it is one and the same whether we discredit 
Him or the writers of the Gospels and the Epistles. 
For if the record is suspicious and untrustworthy, the 
lineaments of Jesus Christ become blurred, uncertain, 
and fade away. 

I shall, therefore, assume that Jesus Christ acted and 
spoke as He is represented to have acted and spoken. 
And to that I shall confine myself. I shall ignore 
the interminable controversies which have been 

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O 

;^ 




THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

waged around His person, over which councils have 
wrangled and whose results have been embodied 
in the great ecumenical creeds. These creeds are, 
in the main, confession of ignorance. They tell 
us what Jesus Christ is not. They are batteries 
pouring hot shot into heresies. But they leave us 
just where they begin, to form an estimate of 
Him by what He has said about Himself, and by 
what He has shown Himself to be in action. He 
has coined His own name ; and that name is the Son 
of Man. Uniformly does Christ speak of Himself in 
this way, even when He speaks of His coming in 
glory, at the end of the world, for universal judgment. 
He is not a son of man, but the Son of Man. But 
the uniqueness and fullness of His humanity leaves it 
humanity still ; for man is man, at the bottom and at 
the top. So Jesus Christ is man, a man, the man. He 
is human in every fiber of His Being, from center to 
circumference. He is human, sleeping and waking, 
speaking and thinking, meditating and praying. There 
are no depths in Him which are not human ; there are 
no heights in Him which are not human. He is human 
in the manger ; He is human on the throne. There is 
no divided life in Him. It is natural, spontaneous, even 
consistent throughout. Whatever truth there may be in 
the theological statement that two natures were united 
in His personality, that there were in Him two centers 
of consciousness and two wills, it is certain that the 
duality never came into concrete expression. As we 
interpret Him by the record, He was one, not two, in 
consciousness and in volition. The union was more 
intimate than that of soul and body. It was so pro- 

225 



THE CHRIST Of NINETEEN CENTURIES 

found and intimate that it defies analysis. It leaves 
Him human, a true man, in the whole scope of His 
conscious and active life. He was born in helplessness. 
He grew in stature and wisdom and favor with God 
and man. He was a student of the holy oracles. He 
was tempted and He conquered by faith and prayer. 
He needed sleep. He wept. He dreaded death when 
it faced Him, and he braced himself to endure it. 
Who is Jesus Christ? He is the Son of Man, a true, 
conscious, personal man. 

But this man makes claims which from any other lips 
would be instantly repudiated and resented as the gross- 
est blasphemy. They were so repudiated and resented 
by those who condemned and crucified Him. And the 
more highly we regard Him as a good man the more 
are we compelled to accept His estimate of Himself, 
without qualification. It must stand, to the crossing 
of a "t'' and the dotting of an ''i." Nor is it difficult 
to determine what these claims were, claims made de- 
liberately and repeatedly by Him, claims which the 
apostles emphasized and which the church for more 
than eighteen centuries has honored in her prayers and 
praises. I will not refer to His miracles, nor to the 
way in which He speaks of God as His Father, nor to 
His claim that He was entitled to interpret the law. 
For a prophet might be invested with such authority. 
But He claimed and exercised the right to forgive sin, 
and He commanded His disciples to preach forgiveness 
and eternal life in His name. He declared that to 
Him belonged the exclusive right of final judgment. 
All that are in the graves, He tells us, shall hear His 
voice, and in response shall present themselves at His 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

tribunal. He has commanded us to pray in His name, 
declaring that whatever honors in worship were ren- 
dered to the Father were due also to Him. Baptism 
visibly seals His ownership of us, which He shares 
with the Father and the Holy Ghost. In the Hol\ 
Supper we commemorate His atoning death, and look 
forward to His coming in glory. The Holy Spirit He 
declares to be His gift ; and the vocation of the Spirit 
He affirms to be the disclosure and explanation of His 
redemptive work. Twice, once in the fierce debate and 
once in the quiet of the upper chamber, while He was 
praying, He affirmed His conscious pre-existence. 
Abraham had seen His day. The Scriptures testified 
to Him. Before the foundation of the world He 
shared the Father's glory. He claimed equality with 
God the Father, and when His hearers were so angered 
that they threatened to kill Him for His blasphemy, 
His answer was only a more incisive and unqualified 
re-affirmation. In this review I have not touched the 
Epistles through which the same note rings. 

The Gospels uniformly represent the man Jesus 
Christ as conscious God, coming down from heaven 
to die for the salvation of men. The precise moment 
when this consciousness of Godhead emerged and be- 
came fixed is not stated. Some have located it at the 
Baptism ; others have traced it to His first visit to the 
Temple when He was twelve years old. The silence 
of the record compels a reverent silence on our part. 
It is certain that during His ministry this conscious- 
ness and conviction were clear and continuous, with- 
out hindrance or addition to His human life and ac- 
tion. The picture of Jesus Christ, in the New Testa- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

ment, is that of a man who came to know that He 
was the Eternal Son of God, who had voUmtarily re- 
nounced eternal divine independence for a Hfe of 
human independence, suffering and death. 

There have been needless debates upon the union 
of the two natures in Jesus Christ. By some they are 
sharply separated ; by others they are mixed or fused. 
Upon this point the New Testament is silent. It con- 
tents itself with affirming that the man Jesus Christ 
was with God, and God, from everlasting. He could 
not have been more truly God had He never become 
man. And He could not have been more truly man had 
He never been God. Man He was, and is, and re- 
mains forever, in every fiber of His being. God He 
was, and is, and remains forever, in every fiber of His 
being. No phrase covers the unique fact. You may 
call Him God and Man, God-Man, God in Man — and 
not all these names will fit the unique unity of His 
life. God and Man, God in Man, suggests two separate 
conscious centers not found in Christ. God-man savors 
of a mixture of which there is no trace. All phrases 
are true; all are inadequate. For we face a truly 
human personality, with one body, one soul, one con- 
sciousness and one will, in which human personality 
there is the consciousness of essential and eternal 
deity. He was the man who knew Himself to be God. 

I know of but one passage in the New Testament 
which throws any light upon this miracle and mystery 
of history. I mean what Paul says in Philippians ii. : 
5-1 1. According to this statement Christ existed in 
the form of God, and was conscious of equality with 
God. He was God. But He emptied Himself, surren- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

dered the form of God for the form of a servant, and 
this He did by becoming man. The form of a thing 
cannot be assumed without assuming the nature of 
that thing. Christ could not take the form of a ser- 
vant without becoming really man. But a thing may 
assume another form without surrender of its nature, 
provided that form is suited to the nature. Christ, as 
the Eternal Son of God, could become man without 
surrender of His divine nature, provided the form of a 
human life was suited to the nature of God. And that 
is plainly assumed in the Biblical teaching that man 
bears the image of God, and that God can dwell in the 
human soul. And if this is not clear, the simple fact 
remains that Jesus Christ is declared to be the King 
who voluntarily surrendered the form of God, in which 
He eternally existed, and exchanged it for the form of 
a servant by becoming man. Before His birth Christ 
was God in the form of God. On earth Christ was 
God in the form of man. In heaven, and eternally, 
Christ is God in the form of man, and man in the form 
of God. A Savioui who is at once God and man is 
what the soul craves. As man, Christ links Himself 
to us, tempted in all points as we are, entering into all 
our sorrows and sins. As God, Christ links us to 
Himself, able to save us to the uttermost, sharers in 
His eternal glory. 



Why Did Christ Die? 
The answer to the question, ''Why did Christ die?" 
will depend upon the reply which is given to the ques- 
tion, ''Who is Jesus Christ?" If Christ was only a 

229 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

man, though the greatest and best of men, His death 
can have only a human meaning. It cannot outrank 
that of a patriot who dies for his country, or that of 
a martyr who surrenders his Hfe in the cause of truth. 
And upon such an estimate of Him, His death was in- 
evitable. Had He escaped violence, old age would 
have enfeebled His powers, and He could not have 
escaped the grave. His death would have been a trag- 
edy, an unfortunate and undeserved calamity ; but in it 
He could only be regarded as sharing the fate which 
falls upon many, w^ho fall at the very beginning of 
their career. 

The question assumes an entirely different aspect 
when the truth of the incarnation is granted. And 
this truth I assume. Jesus Christ was the Word become 
flesh. He was the Eternal Son of God before He was 
born. He was the Eternal Son of God during the 
entire period of His life on earth. He remains for- 
ever the Eternal Son of God in His exalted and glori- 
fied humanity. Of course, this implies the mystery of 
the trinity ; and the trinity of God is ingrained in the 
New Testament. Jesus Christ is God in the form of 
man ; God in every fiber of His being, man in every 
fiber of His being ; as completely God as if He were 
not a man, and as completely man as if He were not 
God. We cannot divide Him. He is always divine 
and He is always human. The truly human experi- 
ences were also divine experiences. The truly human 
acts were also divine acts. The personality was human 
from center to circumference, and it was divine from 
center to circumference. The one soul was human to 
the core, and it was divine to the core. It follows 

230 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

from this, that whatever is affirmed of Jesus Christ is as 
true of His deity as it is of His humanity. The in- 
firmities and pains of the body touched and pierced 
His divine nature. The sufferings and death were 
those of the Eternal Son of God. He was buffeted 
and bruised ; He rose from the sepulcher and ascended 
into the heavens. And this gives to His death a 
unique and startUng meaning. 

For it could not have been inevitable. He could 
die, but He needed not to die. His life was in His own 
hands, as ours is not. So He declared that no man 
could take it, and that He had power to lay it down 
and power to resume it. Not all the armies of earth, 
not all the devils in hell, could have dragged Him to 
the cross. He died because He had come to die, be- 
cause He had made up His mind to die. And if death 
was the eternal and voluntary choice of Jesus Christ, 
to which He marched with deliberate and eager steps, 
then we must call it either suicide or sacrifice. It is 
only necessary to state the alternatives to make it plain 
that the death of Jesus Christ was a divine sacrifice. 
Such the New Testament always represents it to have 
been. 

But why did Christ sacrifice Himself upon the altar 
of death? Sacrifice for its own sake has nothing to 
commend it. We do not praise the spendthrift. We 
do not regard foolhardiness or recklessness as courage. 
Wise men do not burn up their money. Good men do 
not throw their lives away. The word sacrifice is a 
religious term. It defines a sacred act. It means 
the destruction or surrender of one thing for another 
regarded as more desirable. The death of Jesus Christ 

231 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

was a divine sacrifice. It must, therefore, have had an 
adequate purpose. That purpose the New Testament 
declares to have been our salvation from sin and our 
eternal redemption. That we might not perish He died 
and rose again. He died for our sins and rose again 
for our justification. 

This crowds another question to the front. It is 
this : ''Why was it necessary for the Eternal Son of 
God to die that we might be saved?" The fact that 
this is the result which His death secured is a fact 
beyond all question for every one who believes the 
New Testament. But why was such a death necessary ? 
One answer is, that in the flesh of Christ God con- 
demned sin — that is, destroyed its power. And to this 
is added the statement that the strength of sin is the 
law of God, and the law of God is simply the expres- 
sion of His eternal justice. In death Christ grappled 
with sin ; in grappling with sin He encountered the 
law of God, of which sin is the violation ; and in en- 
countering the law of God, Christ undertook to vindi- 
cate and satisfy the eternal righteousness of God — that 
eternal righteousness which was and remains His per- 
sonal attribute as much as the Father's. It was the 
lawgiver who died for the transgressor. This removes 
all appearance of antagonism or conflict between Christ 
and the Father, in the atonement. It was not an angry 
God whom Christ appeased, and the fires of whose 
wrath were quenched in blood. Whatever anger or 
wrath there is in God is also in Jesus Christ. So that 
when we speak of the death of Christ as demanded by 
the law of God, and by the righteousness of God, which 
that law embodies or enforces, we must remember 

232 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

that this demand is not laid upon Christ from without, 
but proceeds from within Himself. It is the righteous- 
ness of God in Him; it is the law of God in Him 
which makes His death necessary to our salvation. So 
much is plain, demanded by the teaching of the New 
Testament. Whether we can probe the mystery any 
deeper admits of serious doubt. 

And yet our question is not fully answered unless 
we add one thing more. If the necessity of the death 
of Christ was such as has been indicated, we must join 
in what the Scriptures declare and thrust into the fore- 
ground, that the love which moved the Eternal Son of 
God to suffer and die for our salvation passes under- 
standing and is unspeakable. Love can do no more 
than to die for its enemies. Every doubt is silenced 
by such a sacrifice. Fears vanish under such a reve- 
lation of the heart of our God. If that does not make 
us penitent, nothing will. If that does not make us 
hate sin, nothing will. If that does not make us pa- 
tient, nothing will. If that does not give us a song, 
nothing will. Let us rejoice with trembling. 



What Does the New Birth Mean? 

The man turns about, but he turns about because 
God has created him anew. This radical change has 
been spoken of as the imparting of a new nature, or 
the implanting of a new principle of life, or the creation 
of a new taste. The only certain fact is that a definite 
creative energy is exerted in and upon the soul, in 
virtue of which it may be said to be born again. This 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

is clear when we consider that the change is repre- 
sented as a birth, as a new creation, and as a resurrec- 
tion from death to sin. 

Turning to the New Testament we find that the new 
birth is the inscrutable sovereign act of God in the soul. 
It is inscrutable ; we cannot understand its method — 
as mysterious as the action of the air, whose move- 
ment we hear and feel, but whose origin we cannot 
trace, and whose limits we cannot define. And it is 
the sovereign act of God, for they who receive Christ 
are said to be born, not of blood, nor of the will of the 
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. It is John 
alone, of the New Testament writers, who speaks of 
this radical moral change in the soul as a birth ; though 
the word is found once, in a modified form, in the writ- 
ings of Peter. Paul speaks of it as a new creation, or 
as a resurrection from moral death, thus clearly 
and forcibly emphasizing the supernatural character 
of the change. John clings to the word birth, but he 
represents it as a birth from above, and speaks of 
those who are the subjects of it as ''born of God.'' 
So that regeneration is as really a miracle as creation 
or resurrection ; that is to say, its casual energy is the 
personal action of God in the soul. 

But the inscrutable act of God is a purely spiritual 
act. The Holy Spirit is the agent in regeneration. 
We are born of the Spirit. The act, therefore, must 
not be confounded with an act of mere power. The 
word spirit means breath. The Holy Spirit is the 
living breath of God, and the new birth is the result 
produced by God's breath upon and into the soul of 
man. The power by which God makes a star is 

234 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

not the power by which He regenerates us. The 
change is a spiritual change, and the act is a 
spiritual act. It follows from this that regeneration 
is not the creation of a new being, nor the implant- 
ing or imparting of a new faculty. Regeneration does 
not create a new soul any more than it creates a new 
body. Neither is altered in essential constitution. 
The change is radically and exclusively spiritual ; its 
sphere is in the convictions, the affections, the elective 
preferences and purposes of the will. 

Men are born again or begotten again, through the 
word of God, that incorruptible seed which liveth and 
abideth forever. The mission of the Holy Spirit is to 
convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of judg- 
ment. He operates in and through the reason, the 
conscience, the moral affection, the will. He takes 
away our blindness and hardness of heart and 
makes an end of our darkness. The Spirit does 
more than teach; He so teaches as to convict and 
persuade; He so convicts and persuades as to create 
us anew. Illumination and conviction and persuasion 
are not all there is in regeneration; but there is no 
regeneration without them — that is to say, the spirit- 
ual act of God is, throughout, a rational act. It is 
mysterious and miraculous, but it is neither mechan- 
ical nor magical. God achieves it by means of truth, 
not by physical power; by His spiritual action in and 
upon the rational and moral nature of man in and upon 
the soul as a thinking, feeling, willing subject. Man, 
therefore, is conscious and active in regeneration. 
Not in the sense that he co-operates with God in pro- 
ducing the radical change, but in the sense that reason, 

235 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

conscience, affection and will are in conscious and 
active movement during the entire process from be- 
ginning to end. It is God who, through His living 
word, regenerates us, but that truth cannot gain en- 
trance and do its transforming w^ork unless we Usten 
and consent, and in Hstening and consenting the soul 
is active. 

But the truth which God uses in regeneration is 
not an abstract proposition. It is concrete and specific. 
It is the truth which is embodied in law and gospel, 
in precept and promise. Here we learn most from 
Paul, who reminds us that we are created anew in 
Christ Jesus, and are risen with Christ, quickened 
together wdth Him. The work of the Holy Spirit is 
not independent of Christ. His chief and highest 
mission is to reveal Christ to our minds and hearts, 
to make clear to us the dignity of His person and the 
meaning of His advent, death and resurrection. Such 
as receive Jesus Christ receive that truth of God, 
through which they are born again. This makes the 
path of our duty plain. The philosophy of regenera- 
tion may escape us. Any attempt to make it intelli- 
gible to ourselves may only result in greater bewilder- 
ment and confusion. But if the new birth be a birth 
in Christ, if the new^ creation be a creation in Christ, 
the one thing for us to do is to keep in close touch 
with Jesus Christ as the Eternal Son of God become 
man, our Teacher, Redeemer and King. At this point 
the mystery clears. We know w-hat it is, by personal 
and confiding fellowship with wiser and better men 
and women, to be transformed into their ways of 
thinking and acting; and sometimes the change is 

236 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

so radical that it may be called a new birth. We 
say — and many can say it — ''Since I met that man, 
that woman, a great change has come over my life. 
I hardly know myself; I wonder, sometimes, whether 
I am the same man, so thoroughly have I been changed 
in my thoughts and purposes.'' We are made, or un- 
made, by those to whom we give our hearts. And they 
who open their minds and hearts to Jesus Christ, as 
the wisest and the best among the sons of men, as the 
Son of Man in whom the fullness of the redeeming 
godhead dwelleth bodily, cannot fail to be the subjects 
of a regenerating agency whose fruit is eternal life. 
That energy is personalized in Him ; it flows out from 
Him, and we need but touch Him to be conscious 
of the healing power. There is no virtue in the touch, 
the virtue is only in Him; but without the touch 
the virtue which is in Him does not become ours. 
A slender wire overhead and a connecting lever swing- 
ing in a socket, and with a grooved wheel at the upper 
end, are pieces of inert machinery. There is no power 
in them. But when from the central power house 
the subtle and invisible electric current shoots through 
them and down into the wheels, the heavy mass above 
the wheels begins to move. Wire and lever are only 
the conductors of the energy, but as conductors they 
are indispensable. And faith saves, because faith 
connects us with Christ, who is the power of God 
unto salvation. It is the conductor of salvation. 
We are exhorted to lay hold upon eternal life, 
and that life is in Jesus Christ. That eternal life 
becomes ours when we lay hold upon Jesus Christ ; in 
believing on Him and surrendering ourselves to Him 



THE CHRIST OF XIXETEEX CEXTURIES 

we are born again. Let us keep in touch with Jesus 
Christ. Let us touch not merely the hem of His 
garment: let us touch His pierced pahns and leave 
our hands in them ; let us come closer still until thought 
answers to thought, and until our heart pulses throb 
in unison, until His holy will sweetly subdues and 
shapes our own; until He dwells in us by His spirit 
and we dwell in Him by faith and surrender, and the 
mysterious and might}' new birth will be a concrete 
fact in our personal experience. Believe on the Lord 
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved! 



Judgment of Self. 

In our judgment upon ourselves we are to follow^ 
the rule of severity: in our judgment upon others we 
are to follow the rule of forbearance. We are to be 
stern and uncompromising with ourselves; we are to 
be cautious and charitable with others. Xor is there 
an}'tliing arbitrary in this difference of temper. 
Reason and righteousness will permit no other course. 
For the fact is simply this : that every man may and 
ought to understand himself, while he understands 
no other man, and no other man understands him. It 
follows from this that self -judgment is the only thing 
possible for any one of us. Our ignorance of others 
debars us from passing judgment upon others, and 
debars others from passing judgment upon us. God is 
the sole judge of all. because He knows the secrets 
of all hearts, and therefore can pass righteous judg- 
ment, the judgment which every individual conscience 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

must approve. To his own master every man stands 
or falls. There is an awful solemnity in this moral 
isolation from which we cannot escape. We cannot 
share our personal responsibility w^ith others. We 
must carry the whole of it. Nor should we desire the 
least release. The moment we do that we surrender 
the crown God meant us to wear. We must be kings 
in reality, not merely in name. And we are sovereigns 
only when we have the courage of our own convic- 
tions, and follow them. We are never weary of 
preaching the duty of individual political convictions 
as indispensable to the permanence of republican in- 
stitutions ; the absolute integrity of individual citizen- 
ship. The kingdom of God and of His righteousness 
rests upon the same corner stone. InfalHble moral 
judgment is possible only to God, Who knows me, 
and to myself, who may be taught of God. For when 
it comes to knowledge, there is only one thing I can 
know with absolute certainty and by immediate con- 
sciousness : and that is myself. I can know my 
thoughts, my motives, my purposes, my weakness, 
my sin. My soul can know no other soul as my soul 
can know itself. And that being the case, I owe it to 
myself to be severe. From my self-judgment there 
can be no appeal. Whether social judgment brings 
me shame or joy will depend upon its agreement with 
self-judgment. If my heart condemns me, every ap- 
proving word will be a barbed and poisoned arrow. 
If my heart justifies me, the scorn of a world will 
not make me cringe. With Paul and Silas I may 
sing in the inner prison ; with Stephen my face may 
shine as an angel's though I be doomed to deatli. 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

No one can judge me except myself. And myself I 
must judge. I know whether I wear a mask or not; 
I know whether I am honest or a hypocrite; and that 
knowledge must and will determine the only judgment 
which can be valid for me. From myself I cannot 
hide. With myself I must always be. No solitude 
can destroy that close and eternal companionship. 
And, therefore, I should be severe with myself. Such 
severity in self -judgment is the first step in salvation. 
I must acknowledge my sin. I must bow to the law 
which condemns me. I must make its sentence my 
own. I must will what the law wills, both when it 
commands purity in the inward parts and when it 
condemns me. For not until I do that will the law 
step aside and leave me face to face with Christ, who 
alone can save me. And as soon as I do that, the 
law no longer blocks my way, but steps aside, that 
Christ may deal with me. Forbearance is out of place 
when we deal with ourselves. That is self-deception. 
The one thing we can do, and must do, is to confess 
our sin, that God in His righteousness, and through 
Christ, may forgive and cleanse us. 

The moral severity which should determine self- 
judgment cannot be our rule in our judgment of 
others. Here forbearance must be the rule. We must 
attribute no goodness to ourselves of which we are 
not certain. We must attribute no wickedness to 
others of which we are not certain. We must esteem 
others as better than we know ourselves to be. simply 
because they may be, in spite of appearances. For 
appearances are deceptive. *'What?" you say, "am 
I to assume that the criminal may be a better man 

240 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

than myself, or as good a man as myself?" Why not? 
Appearances are against him, and the civil law must 
judge by appearances. But suppose you go behind 
appearances. Jesus says that hatred is murder. If 
there were no hatred there would be no murder. If 
there were no covetousness there would be no steal- 
ing. Have you never hated? Have you never 
coveted? An old-time London preacher used to say 
whenever he saw a criminal led to the scaffold : ''There 
I go but for the grace of God.'' He meant it, and 
said it with choking tears of pity and shame. How 
much do we know of the worst of men? What do 
we know of their ancestral inheritance, of their 
poisoned blood, of their degrading and brutalizing 
surroundings? Thirty years have passed since I read 
this sentence : ''He is the best man who makes the 
best fight." I have never forgotten it. And often I 
think that in the slums there is harder fighting than 
in the palaces. I think that if Christ should part the 
sheep and the goats, this day, in our city, we would all 
be amazed, ashamed, if not indignant. Amazed and 
ashamed we certainly would be, though not one of us 
could be indignant, for His judgment would be right- 
eous judgment. Do I say this to excuse vice? Do 
I say it in hostile criticism of our courts? Far from 
it. They must judge by such evidence as they can 
secure. But no civil procedure can go down far 
enough. God may save harlots and murderers where 
society cannot. We reap as we sow ; but mixed with 
the tares there may be wheat, but we cannot separate 
them. And I am bound to think of my fellow men 
as well as I can, to deal with them in the spirit of 

241 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

forbearance, that the good which is in them may not 
be wholly checked. I must not cloak any sin, nor ex- 
cuse any sinner; but for even the worst I must remem- 
ber that Christ died for him. Myself I know, and with 
myself I must be severe ; others I do not know as I 
know myself, and, therefore. I must treat others with 
generous forbearance. 

This is not our natural temper. We are disposed 
to treat others harshly and ourselves leniently. Did 
not our Lord say something about a man whose debt 
of ten thousand talents was fully canceled, who went 
out and had another man arrested and thrust into 
prison who ov/ed him a hundred pence' He was 
lenient with himself, merciless with his fellow man. 
Was that right? Ho"- ir.any of us stop with "For- 
give us our debts." "■.::■:::■.: aiding from the heart, 
"as v:t ?,-s: ::ave i:rgiven our debtors'" The verb is 
in the ;:-r:T:: tense. We are supposed already to have 
forgiven those who have v.-ronged us when we pray 
to have our own sins frrgiven. Let us dare to do the 
ri^h: thing: to exercise for-:taran:e in our treatment 
of others, and to exercise s--.-erity in our treatment 
of ourselves. For when v.e c:nfess our sins with the 
sorrow of a guilty repentance, the mercy of Qod in 
Jesus Christ '1::- - :: ah our rr-an^zressions : and when 
we deal in ^en:'.^ forbearance with our fellow men, we 
prove our—h f ^ to be the children of Him, who is good 
to all. an;' ■":: vrould have all men to be saved. 



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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Christ Dwelling in the Heart. 

''That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; 
that ye may be rooted and grounded in love, may be 
able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, 
and length, and depth, and height; and to know the 
love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might 
be filled with all the fullness of God/' Ephesians 
iii:i7-i9. 

A sentence like this cannot be understood by severe- 
ly exact and scientific analysis. There is too much 
passion in it. The clauses are piled upon each other 
without much regard to logical order or rhetorical 
completeness. The utterance is explosive, as is the 
case in all impassioned prayer. And this prayer is 
one, not many. Its great burden is that the Ephesian 
Christians may be made strong, mature in character 
and fruitful in service, through the indwelling of 
Christ in their hearts. Christ dwells in the heart by 
faith ; He dwells in the heart which trusts in Him. 
To have Christ dwelling in the heart is the same as to 
be filled with all the fullness of God, because in Christ 
the fullness of the godhead dwelleth bodily. And 
these two things, again, Christ dwelling in the heart, 
and being filled with all the fullness of God, are the 
same as knowing the love of Christ, comprehending its 
length and breadth, and depth and height. By so 
much as we are rooted and grounded, by faith, in that 
amazing and unspeakable love, we are filled with all 
the fullness of God, we have Christ dwelling in us, 
we are made strong in Christian character and service. 
This is our one great task, to make real to ourselves 

243 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

the love of Christ for us, the root and foundation of 
our steadfastness. He is the vine, we are the branches. 
The idea of an indwelHng God, or an indwelHng 
Christ, or an indwelhng Spirit, is confusing to many. 
It savors of mysticism. I have often wished that the 
phrase ''mystical union'' had never been coined. 
God is united to us by grace in Jesus Christ, by per- 
sonal affection, seeking and securing our salvation. 
We are united to God and to Christ by faith, by the 
trust which God's love in Christ kindles; which faith 
becomes active in love, and expresses itself in glad 
and grateful obedience. You may call this mystery 
and mysticism if you choose, but it is not one whit 
more mysterious and mystical than the way in which 
mother and child act and react upon each other. They, 
too, live in each other, by love and by faith, and where 
the faith is living and fervent the child comes to be 
filled with all the mother's fullness. We observe every 
day how strong souls shape weak souls, by the self- 
sacrificing love which dwells in the strong, and by 
the fearless surrender which dwells in the weak. In 
love the soul gives itself, and in faith or trust the 
soul gives itself. The love, which is sacrifice, gives 
itself to others, belongs to the highest grades of life; 
it is the passion and prerogative of the noblest men 
and women. The faith or trust by which the soul 
gives itself to the shaping guidance of another lies 
at the heart of all growth in wisdom and goodness. 
All must be learners, though all may not be teachers ; 
and no one needs to be so diligent and earnest a learner 
as the teacher. All must be saved, though not all may 
have the equipment of saviors ; and no one needs sal- 

244 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

vation so much as he who undertakes to save others. 
One must be bullet-proof to save others from death. 
It comes to this at last — God and my soul; God the 
great and only teacher ; all of us pupils in His school. 
One is our master, and all of us on the benches. God 
must save us by His grace ; in Him and in Christ it is 
love v^hich constitutes the bond of union. 

We are saved by surrendering ourselves to that 
grace; with us it is faith which constitutes the bond 
of union, a faith which His love awakens and justifies. 
So that it comes to this: to know the love of Christ, 
which passeth knowledge, to comprehend its dimen- 
sions, its length, breadth, depth and height, is the 
one secret of Christian peace and power. In the lan- 
guage of another, from whom we should not have 
expected it, the fiery Jude: ''Keep yourselves in the 
love of God." God's love for you ! Make that your 
refuge and banqueting hall ! Only remember that this 
love of God is not easy-going indulgence. It is sword, 
hammer and consuming fire. It is a refiner's furnace. 
The will of God which makes His love effective is 
our sanctification, our salvation from sin, our estab- 
lishment in lowliness. If we estimate aright this love 
of God in Christ, its passionate intensity to make us 
pure will awe us while it makes us sing and shout 
in the certainty of victory. We shall rejoice with 
trembling. 

From whatever angle this love of Christ is regarded, 
it is unspeakable. It is unspeakable in its length. It 
had no beginning; it knows no break; it has no end. 
The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to ever- 
lasting. It is unspeakable in its breadth. It includes 

245 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

each and all. It is like a benediction upon every soul. 
It is unspeakable in its depth. It saves to the utter- 
most. And it is unspeakable in its height. It makes 
us joint heirs with Christ, kings and priests with God 
forever. 

The great epistle to the Ephesians contains Paul's 
doctrine of the Christian Church. She has a divine 
calling. Her one task is to make known the manifold 
wisdom of God, to proclaim the unsearchable riches 
of His grace, to teach men the unspeakable love of 
Christ. No other organization is equipped for such a 
service. And by the church nothing else is taught. 
By the Word, by the sacraments, by preaching, prayer 
and praise, the love of God in Christ is the ever- 
recurring and inexhaustible theme. This is the ban- 
ner under which we march. No wonder, then, that 
we are reminded that we shall know the love of Christ, 
but if we comprehend it ''with all the saints," if we 
join ourselves to those who make that love their watch- 
word and support. Many are the prophets whose 
siren voices allure us. It is well that there should be 
one voice which speaks for God and of Him, for Him 
and of Him only, telling us of His majesty. His might 
and His mercy. Not one of us can afford to lose that 
message of warning and of promise. Many are the 
schools in which instruction is given for the proper 
mastery of ourselves, and of the great world in which 
we are called to act our part. It is well that there 
should be one school, and one great text-book, giving 
instruction in matters which concern the character of 
God and our eternal relations to Him. Such a school is 
the Christian Church. Such a text-book is the Bible. 

246 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Neglect of the Christian assembly brings irretrievable 
loss. For knowledge, for the most part, is a social 
product. Corporation is the condition of its exactness 
and of its progress. Students correct and stimulate 
each other. Astronomers, chemists, physicians, law- 
yers, economists work together. They form them- 
selves into guilds or associations, exchanging views by 
personal interviews or by correspondence. Such a 
guild or association is the Christian Church, in the 
multitude of whose counselors there is wisdom. 

We make too much of the discordant utterances in 
Christendom. They could easily be matched in any 
congress of scientists, or philosophers, or politicians. 
We make too little of the fundamental Christian ar- 
guments. All differences vanish when the love of 
God in Christ commands attention. The Cross sub- 
dues us all — Greek, Roman, Protestant. Here we all 
meet and confirm each other in the ancient faith. Iso- 
lation is weakness. Fellowship is strength. United 
we stand, divided we fall. It is not the church which 
saves. But the church is the communion of saints. 
It is not church membership which makes one a Chris- 
tian. It is faith in Christ, personal trust in Him and 
surrender to Him which make one a Christian. But 
church membership openly confesses and registers 
that faith in Christ. It is an awful mockery where 
that faith is absent. But when that faith is present, 
honesty demands its confession, and in the very act 
of confession the faith is (Iccpcnccl and strengthened. 
For what we believe in our hearts we should declare 
with our lips. And membership in the church does 
more than commit us personally and ])ublicly to Christ. 

247 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

It introduces us into the great brotherhood of Chris- 
tian disciples, and this brotherhood is a means of 
grace. It helps us to stand where, otherwise, we would 
stumble and fall. 

It was not an empty form this morning (Communion 
Sunday, February 5, 1900) when we all rose to our 
feet welcoming the new recruits into our ranks, so 
many of them from our own homes. We are glad to 
enroll your names in this family of Christ. The love 
of Christ brought you here. In that love may you be 
rooted and grounded, growing in your knowledge of 
its length, and breadth, and depth, and height, that 
you may be strong in Christian character and fruitful 
in Christian service. We are none of us here because 
we are perfect. We are here because Christ loved us 
and gave Himself for us, and because we have an- 
swered His love by giving Him our hearts. We are 
here because we want to be perfect, and because we 
can become perfect only in and through Christ. 

I can but believe that man}^ others are seriously 
impressed. Almost you are persuaded. You can 
think of no reason why you should not make a public 
profession of your faith in Christ as your personal 
Saviour. Let your heart have its way. Do not, I 
entreat you, delay. Christ says to you: ''Come to Me; 
Give ]\Ie thy heart.'' Let your response be: 

Just as I am without one plea, 
But that Thy blood was shed for me. 
And that Thou bid'st me come to Thee, 
O, Lamb of God, I come ! 

That is the faith which makes eternal life your 

248 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

own. Some of you, I fear, have delayed many years. 
I wonder that the fire still burns in your heart. It stirs 
you even as I speak. Christ has not withdrawn from 
you, and you have not rejected Him. That you dare 
not do. That you would not think of doing. No; 
every one of you wants Him on your bed of death. 
Come to Him now ! 



Last Ministerial Anniversary. 
Sunday, February 25, 1900. 

Forty-three years have nearly passed since Jesus 
Christ laid His hand upon my heart and gave me His 
peace. Nearly thirty-five years have gone since I as- 
sumed the duties of the Christian ministry. Nearly 
half of that time has been spent in the service of this 
church, for this day completes seventeen years of my 
present pastorate. These years have been years of 
searching and sifting. They have been years of mental 
stress and strain. But at the end of forty-three years of 
Christian discipleship, after thirty-five years of minis- 
terial activity, after seventeen years of pastoral service 
among you, I can say, with Paul, and I am glad that 
I can say it, 'T know whom I have believed.'' 

After all these years, my faith in the Holy Scrip- 
tures as the divinely authenticated record of God's 
redeeming action remains undisturbed. I have 
not been ignorant of, nor have I been indifferent to, 
the critical debate of these years. I have listened to 
all that friend and foe have had to say, and I have 
not been consciously or intentionally unfair. Cautious 

249 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

1 have been, and, for accurate knowledge, caution is 
imperative. I am free to say that the assumptions 
and the methods of the critics have not appealed to 
my confidence. There is so much that is fanciful and 
artificial in their procedure that I cannot regard them 
as safe guides. And in all the sharpness of the debate, 
one fact has remained fixed, namely : that Jesus Christ 
and Paul used exactly the same Old Testament which 
I read. For them it was already old and authoritative. 
Tradition is not infallible. But a uniform tradition 
carries more weight in it than a literary guess. I 
cannot believe that Deuteronomy is a pious forgery 
of a late age; I cannot beUeve that the Pentateuch is 
a collection of legends and of manufactured history 
to give sanction to late priestly legislation; I cannot 
believe that the Psalter contains itw, if any, of David's 
hymns. I can understand that the critical and literary 
judgment of Christ's day may not have been infallible 
in all details, but I cannot believe that He and His 
contemporaries w^ere the victims of wholesale fraud 
and deception. Certainly, so far as the New Testa- 
ment is concerned, the trustworthiness and truthful- 
ness of the record is beyond successful impeachment. 
Zahn's great work, just from the press, makes that 
clear. And that indirectly guarantees the trustworthi- 
ness and truthfulness of the older record. In both of 
them w^e may trace the story of what God has done for 
the salvation of fallen men. 

Let me hasten to add, that the Scriptures impress 
me most profoundly when I withdraw from all criti- 
cal questions, when I let them speak to my waiting 
heart in their own way. There is in them a moral 

250 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

earnestness which makes me tremble. There is in 
them an emphasis of righteousness which fills me with 
awe. There is in them a passion for holiness which 
makes me cry out in agony. There is in them a fear- 
less honesty and completeness of confession of moral 
weakness and wickedness which compels my assent. 
I am what they picture me. I ought to be what they 
summon me to be. And there is in them so clear a 
revelation of the saving grace of God in Jesus Christ, 
that my heart responds to it with an unutterable eager- 
ness. They shine in their own light. They speak in 
their own tongue. When I deal with them in this 
simple, straightforward way, I am sure that they are 
able to make me wise unto salvation, that holy men 
of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. 
The letter still killeth, whether it be the letter of 
scholastic theology or the letter of minute criticism. 
In both directions you can make dissection end in 
death. The Spirit maketh alive, and the quickening 
spirit is what we want; the Spirit who makes the 
face of Christ so luminous that we see only Him, 
and all things in Him. It was a true note which 
Moody struck when he said that all the theology and 
religion he wanted was in Christ's own words : ''Come 
unto Me and I will give you rest." In that simple and 
sweet message the Holy Ghost speaks and works ; and 
the more closely we adhere to the majesty of the gospel 
the better will it be for us, and for all. This doc- 
trine of the Holy Ghost, leading us into all truth, 
and by it convincing the world, has come to 
mean, for me, that Jesus Christ is tlie Ciospel of Sal- 
vation, and that wherever Christ is preached God 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

is at work saving men. Our sole anxiety should be 
to make Christ known. That is our whole duty. We 
do not need to act as His advocates. The Holy Spirit 
will take care of that. And when we make Christ 
known, we must rest in the assurance that the Holy 
Spirit is owning and enforcing our message. Men 
are not argued into religion. But Christ wins them. 
We are in danger of forgetting that. An iron logic 
leaves me hard and cold as steel. But when you tell 
me who Jesus is, and what He has done for you and 
for me, my heart dissolves in thankfulness and tears. 
In that message the Holy Spirit works. And that is 
always the message which monopolizes our speech 
when the Holy Spirit has His way. We pray for the 
baptism of the Spirit. It may be a selfish and am- 
bitious prayer. Simon asked for that, and Peter de- 
nounced him. He wanted the gift for personal gain. 
And we may be as selfish as he. The gift is bestowed 
where mind and heart are captive to Jesus Christ. 
Let us continue to tell the story of His love, and never 
grow weary of it! For to be able to say, with Paul: 
"I know whom I have believed," though we be igno- 
rant of all else, is better than to have all other knowl- 
edge and not be able to say this. For this is the faith 
that overcometh the world. 



The Spiritual Body. 

We must guard against the idea that the spiritual 
body is composed of the same material particles which 
constitute the animal or earthly body. The resur- 

252 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

rection of the body does not mean the coming forth 
of that body which is laid away in the grave. That 
goes to dust and ashes. The body of your earthly 
possessions is a constantly vanishing organism. Not 
one of its particles, so far as we know, holds the secret 
of permanence. The body is always in the pangs of 
birth and in the throes of death. It has changed a 
score, a hundred, times before the head is pillowed 
in the casket. The body of childhood has long since 
vanished; why should we imagine that the present 
material particles are any more sacred and indispensa- 
ble? God is not so poor, and we are not so poor that 
He must take this threadbare and wornout garment, 
patch it up and scour it that we may wear it here- 
after and forever. No ; the white robes of heaven are 
not made up of the rags of earth. So we are taught 
in the New Testament. The present body is likened 
to a seed. It is not quickened except it die. But God 
giveth it a resurrection body — a body in the growing 
blade of green, which leaves the husk to be dissipated. 
There is a sloughing off and a putting on. Paul con- 
ceives of a quickening process, going in the very act 
and experience of death, in virtue of which the mortal 
body ceases to have any further meaning or use. It 
has been cast off for ever. 

This would seem to involve the further inference 
that death and resurrection are not so far apart, in 
point of time, as we have been apt to think. In a grain 
of wheat death is not one thing and resurrection an- 
other. The two processes are inseparable. In dying, 
the seed rises into its nobler form. May we affirm this 
of our own death ? There is an increasing disposition 

253 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

to do this, to make death and resurrection simulta- 
neous. As soon as the rags of earth fall off, the royal 
purple wraps us round. There is much to be said in 
support of the idea, that in the New Testament the 
resurrection is represented as a rare process, culmi- 
nating in Christ's advent ; but that the individual resur- 
rection is at the instant of death. The fifth chapter 
of Second Corinthians seems incapable of any other 
explanation ; for the statement is very emphatic that 
when our present tabernacle collapses in death, we 
have a house of God, not made with hands, eternal in 
the heavens. Here the resurrection is pictured as 
following immediately upon death, so that the soul 
is not left unclothed and naked. There are many pas- 
sages, however, where the resurrection is located at 
the end of the world, as preceding the universal and 
final judgment. This has always been, and still re- 
mains, a perplexity. We must assume that both repre- 
sentations were intended to be combined. There is 
the same twofold description of the second coming 
of Christ, and of the final judgment. Some passages 
make the coming of Christ an event in the future ; 
others make it present and continuous. It is both. 
He is always coming. Some passages locate the 
judgment in the future; other passages make the judg- 
ment present and continuous, while other passages 
make it follow immediately upon the death of the in- 
dividual. The final judgment, like the coming of 
Christ, is a process, present and continuous, not an 
isolated, a spectacular, distant, future, event. So we 
may say of the resurrection, that it is a process, com- 
pleted at the end of the world, as soon as death has 

254 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

claimed its last victim, but that it takes place for each 
individual upon the very bed of death. 

We may well speak with bated breath here. 1 have 
hesitated many years ; but it grows upon me more and 
more, that death is only the negative side of a process 
of which the resurrection is the positive side. Death 
is the prelude of resurrection. What a solemn and 
glorious thing it is to die, if upon our death-bed God 
robes us ! Only let us hold fast to one thing — the 
resurrection of the body is a peculiar and distinctive 
fact. It must not be identified with the immortality of 
the soul. Each Easter season brings to the surface 
the notion that the two are equivalent. They are not. 
They are distinct, and they are also inseparable. There 
is a subtle contempt for a material body in a good 
deal of modern thought, just as sin is reduced to the 
passion of animalism. I do not sympathize with this 
tendency. The human body is God's noblest material 
work; and its eternal rescue is the moral significance 
of the doctrine of the resurrection. This scepticism 
as to the body, and its permanent place in man's con- 
scious personality, affects, also, the interpretation of 
our Lord's resurrection. Those who maintain that 
the resurrection of the body practically means no 
more than that the soul is immortal, also say that 
Christ's resurrection simply means that His disciples 
became convinced that He was still alive. I confess 
that I find it difficult to treat such a statement serious- 
ly. It needs no elaborate refutation. It was His 
body which they had in mind when they declared that 
He had risen. Every Pharisee would have laughed 
at them, if they had simply meant that His soul had 

-\S5 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

not been destroyed. No one called that in question. 
But the affirmative of His resurrection startled and 
confounded them. There was the empty grave; what 
had become of the body? To the amazed and doubt- 
ing disciples Jesus showed His hands and His feet. 
He partook of honey and broiled fish. He was not 
a ghost. He had flesh and bones. It was a real body 
in which He appeared, and in which He could reveal 
the crucifixion marks when He chose to do so. On 
the other hand, it was not the same body. He did 
not return to His former work. He did not go back 
to the temple. He did not lodge again at Bethany. 
They knew Him not when He walked by their side. 
They did not even recognize His voice. Through the 
barred doors He came to them. He was the same, yet 
not the same. Even Mary was no longer allowed to 
clasp and kiss His feet. Here again, as in Paul's 
chapter on the resurrection, are the two sides of the 
great miracle and mystery. 

The grave was empty. The body was gone. He 
had resumed it, leaving only the grave clothes and the 
napkin, carefully folded away, as if in recognition of 
the tenderness with which loving hands had ministered 
to His lifeless body, and yet, in resuming it, some- 
how, the old body had faded away and had been re- 
solved into another body, incorruptible and immortal. 
I have sometimes wondered whether the incorruptible 
body is so plastic to thought and intention that the 
soul can at will reproduce the physical image of any 
period. Can Christ show me His hands and feet? 
It may be so. And it may be that herein lies the pos- 
sibility and the certainty of future recognition of those 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

whom we have known on earth. The earthly face 
may be made to flash npon us from within and behind 
the eternal radiance ! But however that may be, it 
was Christ's mortal and buried body which was 
touched and transfigured by the miracle of the resur- 
rection. Not a pinch of dust remained behind to be 
gathered up by superstitious hands. His cross, the 
napkin that bound His brow — these are preserved as 
supposed relics — but no one has presumed to claim a 
bone of His body. It vanished forever, beyond all 
possible hope of recovery. In an instant, that came to 
His mortal flesh what comes to our mortal bodies 
after centuries of gradual waste and dispersion. The 
grave held Him long enough to prove that He had 
really died. And then He rose. His mortal flesh van- 
ishing, but quickened into the body of His eternal 
glory! That robs death forever of its sting, and the 
grave of its victory. For the risen Lord is with us, 
and in us, when we come to die; ready to invest us 
with the royal purple, when the moth-eaten and worn- 
out garment drops from our shoulders ! 



The Incarnate Christ. 
It is said that the most powerful microscope fails 
to reveal any difiference in the structure of the cells 
from which, respectively, are developed an oak, a fish, 
an eagle, an elephant, a human being. It is impossible 
to label living things when they begin to be. We must 
wait until they have grown into their distinctive forms. 
The man who does not know the difference between 
a robin and a thrush cannot distinguish the eggs from 

257 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

which they have been hatched. Only he can label the 
eggs who, at some time, has seen their shells break, 
liberating their imprisoned occupants. Living things 
are known to us, not in their beginnings, but in their 
development and issue. Self-revelation is the pre- 
rogative and law of all life. It holds its own secret, 
and reveals it in its own way, and in its own time. We 
do not study the tgg to understand the eagle, nor the 
acorn to understand the oak; but we invest the egg 
with what we know of the eagle, and the acorn with 
w^hat we know of the oak. 



Atheism cannot explain the w^orld. Without God 
there is no such thing as construing the universe in 
terms of thought. Without the world we could have 
no knowledge of God. It is the world outside of us 
and inside of us, the realm of matter and of mind, 
which compels us to say God ; and without it we would 
not even be able to say it. So that, in the universe, 
we have a true incarnation of the thought, and will, 
and life of God. And if by creation God has made a 
habitation for Himself, shall w^e say that the portals 
of human birth are closed against Him? Must He 
be barred from making a human body and soul the 
human seat and throne of His personal life? I know 
the final mystery is here. Alystery — w^hen does it 
begin, and wdiere does it end? All is mystery. You 
cannot explain a blade of grass without explaining the 
universe. Its very life is an unfathomable and un- 
fathomed abyss. 

You cannot dissect its covering; you can tear its 

258 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

fibers to pieces, but you cannot sew or weave them 
together again. Into its form and color the heat of 
the sun has entered, so that the blade of grass lives 
and moves and has its being in the energies of the 
planetary system. The lightning sleeps in it as in a 
bed of down. And our planetary system lives and 
moves and has its being in the boundless universe. 
The universe is reproduced in a grass blade. The 
earth alone could not have made it. The Sun, and 
Sirius, Orion and the Pleiades Hve in it. Mystery 
is everywhere. The supernatural is the life of all 
that we call natural. It is because of this fact that 
intellectually I am not staggered by the statement that 
the Babe of Bethlehem was and continues to be God 
Incarnate. If God has put something of Himself into 
a blade of grass, why may He not have put His con- 
scious personal life into an infant human body and 
soul? Why not? ''But,'' you will say to me, ''do you 
mean to say that the Babe who lay in Mary's arms, 
the Boy who went to the school and played in the 
streets of Nazareth, knew Himself to be God?" No; 
I do not mean that. For of Christ it was true, what 
is true of every one of us, that He was more than 
He for many a year knew Himself to be. Uncon- 
scious genius sleeps in the cradle. It gives no sign, 
and itself lives in ignorance of what lies wrapped up 
in hand and brain. But the greatness is astir, and 
breaks into expression slowly in some, suddenly in 
others. So did Christ grow in stature, in wisdom, in 
grace, until first to Himself, and then to others, it 
became clear that in Him the Eternal Word had be- 
come flesh; that His glory was the glory of the only 

259 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

begotten of the Father. And now that we have made 
this amazing discovery, we affirm of the helpless Babe 
that He is God Incarnate, and with the wise men bow 
the knee and worship Him. It is our Christian testi- 
mony that God in the person of His Son has become 
Incarnate for us sinners, and for our salvation. The 
man Christ Jesus was the \\^ord made Flesh. That 
Word was in the beginning, and was God. All 
things were made by Him. In Him was life, 
and apart from Him there is no life. Creator, Up- 
holder, Ruler of the universe was He, and con- 
tinues to be. This general fact involves some very 
important and practical conclusions. I confine myself 
to three. It gives us a definite theory of the universe ; 
it enunciates the true philosophy of history, and It 
reveals the ground of human redemption. 

It gives us the Christian theory of the universe. 
There is no Christless universe. \\t trace all things 
to God. But we must also trace all things to Jesus 
Christ. For Christ is God revealed, God Incarnate, 
the only God we know. A\'ithout Him, nothing was 
made that is made. His relation to the universe is 
not secondary and casual. It is creative and contin- 
uous. The universe came into being by Him who 
cradled in ^Mary's arms, and who died upon the cross. 
He was before the universe came into being. It w^as 
He whose Spirit brooded over the primeval darkness. 
It was He who said, ''Let there be light, and there was 
light.'' It was He w^ho made man in His own image. 
He did not make His first appearance in the universe 
when He was born beneath the Syrian stars. He made 
the Syrian stars, and it was His own lamp that led the 

260 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

wise men to His manger. At the heart of the universe, 
and upon its central throne, is Jesus Christ. The uni- 
verse is what He made it. Upon every part of it He 
has stamped the seal of His power and wisdom. His 
own image and superscription. It is the first and old- 
est of all the gospels. It is the primal incarnation of 
His thought and will. Nothing in it is known aright 
until His name is read. Some one has said that as- 
tronomy is ''petrified mathematics, and that Jesus 
Christ is the mathematician.'' The sciences reveal 
His glory, for the materials of science are His crea- 
tion. They are His petrified thoughts. The stars are 
His, the sea is His, the mountains are His. They are 
His because He made them; and they are His that 
they may serve Him in making Him known. All 
things proclaim God. 

Let us make the statement concrete — all things 
speak of Jesus Christ. That invests all things with a 
peculiar and solemn charm. I do not need a cross 
of gold set with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and 
pearls, covering my heart, to remind me of the tree 
upon which Christ tasted and conquered death for me. 
That cross gleams for me in the depths of the seas, 
in the mines of the earth, in the starry spaces. Every- 
where I front life grappling with death, life sepul- 
chered in death, life overcoming death by suffering. 
The Man of Sorrows meets me not only in Bethany 
and in Gethsemane ; I see His face in a universe whose 
pillars are cemented and made strong in pain and 
tears. You tell me that Christ's face was marred. 
But does not nature, ''red in tooth and claw with 
ravine," point me to the same story in "scarped cliff 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

and quarried stone"? And when Tennyson asks, *'Are 
God and nature, then, at strife?" I answer, "No; 
creation grows because Christ grows in it." The 
whole universe is His Gethsemane ; the whole universe 
is His Calvary; the whole universe is His Olivet. He 
speaks in its pain, in its suffering, in its death, in its 
eternal struggle for deliverance from bondage. It is 
Christ who speaks to me in sunrise and sunset, in 
tempest and rainbow, in lightning and earthquake, in 
heat and cold, in ice and snow and hail. The strength 
of the universe is His strength; the order of the uni- 
verse is His immutable wisdom; the suffering of the 
universe is His suffering; the beauty of the universe 
is the beauty of His possession and bestowment. Why 
did He speak so much in parables? Why did He use 
a grain of wheat to illustrate His death? How could 
He do otherwise? The things upon which He based 
His parables were the things wdiich He had made, 
and into which He had put His thoughts, and He only 
brought out what He had put in. Therefore, the 
dying grain, when it burst, disclosed His cross. 

That treasury of truth He did not exhaust in His 
recorded teaching. He opened the door for us to a 
boundless knowledge. Whenever w^e discover a new 
truth, whether in astronomy, or chemistry, or elec- 
tricity, or liquefied air, or biology, we discover another 
eternal thought of Christ. All science is Christian 
theology at heart. There is no conflict betw^een science 
and religion. The more science, the more religion. 
The more religion, the more science. Every man who 
adds to useful knowledge is a theologian, and preaches 
the gospel of Christ. It is Christ's world we live in, 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

and from foundation to cope-stone and pinnacle it is 
vocal with praise. Why should there be so much 
suspicion between the men who study the face of 
Nature and the men who study the face of Jesus 
Christ, when the hands of Jesus Christ fashioned what 
we call Nature? It is pathetic to read the dying con- 
fession of St. George Mivart, who ached to be loyal 
to his church, but could not play false with himself: 
''I have no more leaning to atheism or agnosticism 
than I ever had, but the inscrutable, incomprehensible 
energy pervading the universe (as it seems to me) 
disclosed by science, differs profoundly, as I read 
Nature, from the God worshipped by Christians.'' 
Such a confession should be impossible, and it is your 
business and mine to make it impossible. We must 
not put asunder what God has joined together, and the 
mind of Christ is as really in Nature as it is in the 
New Testament. Let us learn from each other, and 
help each other, in wreathing the laurels for the brow 
of Him who is both Lord of Nature and of Grace. 

The Incarnation supplies us with the Christian phi- 
losophy of history. There is no Christless history. In 
Bethlehem, the King made His visible appearance, but 
He was King from everlasting. The Hebrew word 
''Jehovah'' is translated by Kurios in the Greek, by 
Dominus in the Latin, by Herr in the German, and 
by Lord in the English, and He who was made Flesh 
is the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Christ is none 
other than the Jehovah of the Old Testament, the 
God of the Covenant, the Lord revealed in the grace 
of redemption. He made man in His own image, and 
not for one moment has Lie abandoned the work of 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

His hand. He was the hope of our first parents in 
their exile from Eden. He called Abraham from the 
land of Ur. He sent Moses to deliver Israel from 
bondage. He dwelt in the pillar of cloud and fire. 
He sent the manna from heaven. It was His rod 
which made the waters to gush from the flinty rock. 
He nerved the arm of Joshua. He called David from 
the sheepfolds. He inspired psalmists and prophets. 
They all saw His day, and that made them glad. In 
all the upheavals of those forty centuries, His pierced 
hands held the reins. It was one universal prepara- 
tion for His advent in the Flesh. That ancient history 
was not a Christless history, not even when Babylon 
was defiant, and Assyria ruled with a rod of iron, and 
Sodom was buried beneath the fiery hail. There are 
no Christless centuries, there are no Christless nations. 
And He rules in all history still, and will unto the 
end. We speak of God in history, of an increasing 
purpose running through the ages widening the 
thoughts of men with the process of the sun. Let us 
put it into concrete form. Let us say that all history- 
is the work of Jesus Christ. And so the historian, 
the poet, the philosopher, the statesman, the patriot, 
philanthropist, is a theologian, a preacher of the gospel 
of Jesus Christ. Carlyle and Tennyson, Mozart and 
Raphael, are apostles. The decay of nations is a 
solemn warning of Jesus Christ. The prosperity of 
nations is a blessing of Jesus Christ. That gives us 
faith for the future, the certainty that Christian civil- 
ization will subdue and hold the round globe. For the 
generations of men are Christ's, as are the stars. He 
made them and they march under His captaincy. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

The Incarnation constitutes the basis of the Chris- 
tian doctrine of redemption. There is no Christless 
universe. There is no Christless history. And there 
is no Christless redemption. On that point I need 
not linger. The name of Jesus Christ is ''the only 
name given under heaven whereby man must be 
saved.'' That stands fast, insoluble as the mystery 
may seem to be. But it may help us to understand 
why a sinless man can suffer and die for the sinful ; 
and must so suffer and die, when we remember that 
we all were created by Him, and that in Him we all 
live and move. I presume you have asked the ques- 
tion a hundred times, ''How can any one be my repre- 
sentative and substitute? How can any one bear the 
penalty of my sin and save me? Must not the law 
of God deal with me, and with me only?" And I 
must grant you right in your argument. Sin, guilt 
and penalty are not transferable. The law forbids 
such transfer. Representation and substitution there 
cannot be unless we can find a natural and righteous 
ground for them. Fictitious and arbitrary arrange- 
ments cannot be tolerated in the government of God. 
But remember, now, that they for whom Christ acts 
as representative and for whom He dies as substitute, 
are they who have been created by Him, and could 
neither act nor be were it not for Him. He is re- 
sponsible for our being — He alone; and if we had no 
being, we could not sin. 

We may say that Christ is responsible to the Father 
for the existence of a race which lies under the penalty 
of eternal death because of its sin. It is, therefore, 
with Christ that God must deal, as well as with each 

265 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

individual sinner ; and He must deal with each individ- 
ual sinner in Christ, to v^hom every sinner owes his 
being. God, and God alone, is responsible for my 
existence; though I, and I alone, am responsible for 
my sin, because He has made me free. His eternal 
justice, therefore, binds Him to do two things — to 
hold me to strict account for the sin which is mine, 
and mine alone, and to hold Himself to strict account 
for creating me. I cannot bring Him to bar. The 
universe cannot do that. But unless He brings Him- 
self to bar, He dishonors Himself. He must make 
me bear the full weight of my burden, and He must 
bear the full weight of His burden. My burden is my 
sin; His burden is my soul, with all my sins upon it. 
He is responsible for my being, and, therefore. He is 
under obligation to do His utmost to prevent my ruin 
and to save me. The grace which saves is free and 
undeserved; but it is as necessary and eternal as the 
justice of God. He might fling me away into the 
outer darkness, without one thought or act of com- 
passion; but in that outer darkness I should charge 
Him with the most cruel injustice. For I am the 
work of His hands, and He must bear me to remain 
true; and in bearing me He must bear my sins. 

Jesus Christ, therefore, as God manifest in the flesh, 
only steps into His own place when He steps into my 
place, because I have no place except such as I hold 
by His will; nor does He vacate His place when He 
gives me mine. It is His still. No covenant agree- 
ment is needed. The eternal fitness of things makes 
Him the only responsible representative, the only pos- 
sible substitute, the only Sacrifice and Saviour. The 

266 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

relations between Him and us are more vital than 
the relations between a mother and her unborn babe. 
We Hve only in Him. His place is the place which 
covers each several place of all earth's millions. If 
disease strikes us, it must strike Him, for we are 
rooted in Him. If death claims us, it must claim Him, 
because we are rooted in Him. He alone, as the re- 
sponsible author of our being, can render satisfaction, 
and bring in an everlasting redemption. No other 
mediation can be accepted, and His mediation must 
be accepted. You see, there is no arbitrary transfer 
here. It is all as it must be. It cannot be otherwise. 

The sinless one bears the burden of the world's 
sin, the innocent one suffers the stripes due to the 
guilty, simply because the sinless and innocent one 
is He to whom the sinful and the guilty owe their 
being, in whom their very existence is rooted. It was 
long before this truth dawned upon me, and even now 
my grasp upon it is often weak. It is so amazing. 
But it is the very heart of what the New Testament 
has to say about Jesus Christ. It lies upon gospel and 
epistle as the Milky Way upon the vault of blue. He 
is no other than the Light and the Life of all men, 
by whom all men were created, in whose image and 
for whom all men were fashioned. He must stand 
and fall with the race which He has called into exist- 
ence. And when He undertakes to save us He must 
endure all that falls upon us, for He and we cannot be 
torn asunder. His sufiferings and death are penal ; 
they can be nothing else. His sufferings and death 
are substitutionary; they can be nothing else. His 
sufferings and death exhaust all penalty; it nuist be 

267 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

so. His sufferings and death endured, must release 
us from the condemnation of the law ; so that I must 
fall from grace and cut myself loose from Christ 
to be lost. 

Do I, then, preach universal salvation? No; I do 
not, and cannot. For as Dr. Williams said: "Worlds 
seen and unseen cannot save a man, nor damn a man, 
without his own consent." There is a divine uni- 
versalism, the universalism of Christ and of Paul, the 
universalism of grace. You may think, if you choose, 
of this world as apart from Christ, and then it is a 
hopelessly lost world. But there is no such world. 
Christ is in the world, and the world is in Christ ; and 
that makes it a redeemed world. You may think, if 
you choose, of souls apart from Christ ; and then souls 
are in the grasp of eternal death. But there are no 
such souls. All souls are in Christ, and from His 
hands, and that makes them heirs of salvation. But 
it is not enough that you be in Christ; Christ must 
also be in you. You can sell your birthright, secured 
to you so freely, and at so great a cost, by rejecting 
Him, by refusing to let Him live in you. You may 
trample on the body and blood of your Lord; and 
you must do it, if you lose your soul. And so I say 
again, that you must fall from grace if you become 
the victim of eternal death. You are a redeemed 
soul now, an heir of holiness and glory ; what is needed 
is your own consent. And that free consent of yours 
is the one thing which Christ cannot force. 

There is no Christless salvation. There never has 
been. Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation 
of the world. There has never been an economy with- 

268 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

out atonement, because there has never been any 
moral government without Christ. The Cross on 
which Christ died to save men, the Cross of Calvary, 
is a revelation in space and time of the eternal atone- 
ment. It was not merely prefigured by the Old Tes- 
tament sacrifices. As soon as man began to sin, the 
Eternal Christ began to suffer. As soon as men began 
to die, Christ began to feel the pain of death's dart. 
The sufferings and death, simply materialized, became 
objective and historical, in Gethsemane and on Cal- 
vary; but in principle they were eternal. Nor have 
they ceased now. Christ still suffers when we sin. 
We crucify Him afresh. Christ still weeps when our 
sorrows crush us. Christ still dies when we die. Only 
the eternal secret is out at last. If we will only lay 
hold upon Him by faith, if we will only let Him have 
His way with us. He will so suffer and die in us and 
with us, that sin shall be destroyed, sorrow shall be 
sanctified to us, and death shall become for us the 
open gate into the eternal heavens ! 



Wayside Notes on Bible Criticism.'^ 

Proper names are not particularly interesting read- 
ing. No one turns to the genealogical tables in con- 
ducting family prayers. They seem to be utterly use- 
less except for purposes of discipline in pronunciation. 
But they are coming to play a large part in historical 

* From an address delivered as a " Concio ad Clernm " before 
the Yale Divinity Students, at New Haven, Conn., Sunday even- 
ing, May i6, 1897. 

269 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

criticism. There are a great many such names in the 
Priestcode, and they are very ugly obstructions in the 
path of those who drag the legislation down to a 
late date. They can be compared with the numerous 
contract tablets which have come to light in Northern 
Babylonia, and these tablets, dating from the middle 
of the second millennium B. C, contain names simi- 
larly derived and compounded. And they are found 
nowhere else, and in no other period. The personal 
names of the Priestcode fit into the Mosaic period, 
and they fit in no other. This has been elaborately set 
forth by Nestle in 1876, and by Hommel in 1896. All 
the reply which Wellhausen made to Nestle's archaeo- 
logical proofs was to admit the facts, and then to assert 
roundly that the personal names, as well as the gen- 
eral history, in the Priestcode, ''had been deliberately 
manufactured after an earlier pattern!'' What shall 
be said of such criticism ? It ought to have the whole 
dictionary hurled at its head for its insolence. 
But, as Hommel well says, "Truth must in the end 
prevail. The monuments speak with no faltering 
tongue, and already I see signs of the approach of a 
new era in which men will be able to brush aside the 
cobweb theories of the so-called higher critics of the 
Pentateuch, and, leaving such old-fashioned errors 
behind them, attain to a clearer perception of the real 
facts. The gales of spring are already beginning to 
sweep across the fields that have so long been ice- 
bound." Archaeology seems likely to rout the critics, 
''horse, foot and dragoon.'' 

The two or more Isaiahs may yet be recognized as 
one; and, for myself, I have little confidence in the 

270 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

literary dissection which gives us seven or eight 
authors of this great prophetic book, and so much 
confidence in the witness of tradition, that I do not 
propose to muddle the heads of my people with abor- 
tive attempts to reconstruct that part of the Old Tes- 
tament. I do not need a critic to tell me that David 
did not write all the Psalms. All I need to do is to read 
the Old Testament hymnal, and I find that more than 
half of them are either anonymous, or from other 
hands. It is a man of straw which is riddled, when 
we are told, somewhat pompously, that the inscrip- 
tions are not part of the text, added by a later hand, 
and therefore not inspired and finally authoritative. 
But they are very old, and the only external testimony 
which we have. It may be that the compilers made 
mistakes here and there; but when Ewald tells me 
that only thirteen Psalms are from David, and when 
Cheyne throws David out altogether, I am content 
to endure the scorn of these scholars, and take my 
stand with tradition as more likely to be correct than 
they. At all events, the substantial vindication of 
tradition in the department of New Testament litera- 
ture, as boldly bulletined by Harnack, may well call 
for a little more modesty and reverence in dealing 
with the Old Testament. Harnack's concession seems 
to me the Gettysburg of the critical campaign, to be 
followed in time by Appomattox. 

Another very significant fact is the unqualified re- 
pudiation of a preconceived philosophy of history, in 
determining the authorship and date of professedly 
historical documents. This is the pivotal assumption, 
both of Baur and Wellhausen. These gentlemen knew 

271 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

exactly how history must have made itself. Both are 
disciples of Hegel, and accepted his theory of histor- 
ical evolution as authoritative. History advances, in 
their view, with the precision of a syllogism. It is 
simply a logical evolution. It marches to the triple 
command : Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis ! and the cir- 
cular spiral movement is never interrupted. Things 
must begin in a certain way, and develop in a certain 
way, and mature in a certain way. If things do not 
begin and develop and mature in the Hegelian way — 
why, so much the worse for the facts, and for those 
who recorded them. So Baur calls out 'Thesis'' — 
and out comes Peter; then he cries ''Antithesis," and 
out comes Paul; and then he shouts "Synthesis,'' and 
out comes the New Testament literature — the product 
of conflicting tendencies harmonized by a later age. 
But Harnack's hammer leaves not a vestige of this 
brilliant procedure. He roundly declares that such 
a method is irrational and vicious, because no man can 
tell how history must shape itself, nor at what period, 
and in how many years revolutionary changes are 
brought about. He calls the Hegelian school down 
from the clouds, and reminds them that the study of 
history is very prosaic business. He refers to the 
tremendous changes wrought between 15 17-1530, or 
between 15 17-1567, which, according to the Hegelian 
evolution, ought to have taken five or six hundred 
years. He vindicates the productive period of the first 
forty years, after the death of Christ, as sufficient to 
account for primitive Christianity. And Harnack is 
undoubtedly right. For the one thing which the 
Hegelian theory of history does not take into account 

2^2 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

is — personality. It breaks to pieces upon Luther, and 
Paul, and Christ. Given these personaUties, and the 
rapid changes are inteUigible. It is the man who is the 
real miracle. It is the great man who turns the world 
upside down. 

Wellhausen is no greater and no less a sinner than 
Baur. He, too, starts with the Hegelian notion of 
historical evolution. History is simply a logical proc- 
ess. The history as given in the Old Testament 
cannot be true, simply because it contradicts the scien- 
tific principles of historical development; and under 
that assumption, the dates of the several documents 
are dragged down six hundred and a thousand years. 
The chronological boundaries must be broken through 
to make the theory work, exactly as Baur did with 
the New Testament. And if, as Harnack says, forty 
years are sufficient to account for primitive Christian- 
ity, provided you have Christ and Paul, why may not 
the forty years of the wilderness Hfe be sufficient for 
the shaping of the Old Testament religion, upon 
which the prophets themselves were dependent, pro- 
vided you have Moses as leader? The drift is toward 
that conclusion. Harnack simply knocks out the un- 
derpinning of the entire structure of revolutionary 
criticism. For that criticism, in the hands of Well- 
hausen, reproduces the methods of Baur, which Har- 
nack says have been discredited and abandoned. In 
Kuenen's language, ''our dearly-bought scientific 
method" compels us to discredit Moses, and Paul, 
and Jesus Christ, and forces us to regard the Old 
Testament history as a 'Sveb of deceptions and false- 
hoods." Harnack says, in substance: ''So much the 

273 



THE CHRIST OF NLXETEEX CENTURIES 

worse for your dearly-boiight scientific method. You 
have paid too much for it. The facts must stand. 
Your method is not scientific because it ignores the 
facts ; and it is not radical, because it does not go to 
the roots of the problem. Throw it away, and use 
your common sense, which will lead you back to tra- 
dition.'' 

I say, in conclusion, that we may as well conclude 
that the time has hardly yet come to surrender either 
Paul or ]\Ioses at the boisterous demands of the higher 
critics. And if any of you have bought your tickets, 
or are seriously thinking of buying them, to join the 
widely advertised and highly recommended excursion 
engineered by Kuenen and Wellhausen, who have 
simply patched up and painted the old and dilapidated 
rolling stock of Baur and Company, I advise you to 
change your mind, and exchange your coupons while 
there is time and then get aboard the old weather-beaten 
train, where 'Moses is on the lookout and Paul grasps 
the lever. For just now a new voice has been heard 
in tones of earnest warning. Roadmaster Harnack 
has come along, with his hammer and lamp, with his 
keen eye and quick ear, and as he strikes the wheels of 
the critical train, he sends up word that every one of 
them is cracked, unfit for the contemplated journey, 
and doomed to an early and disastrous breakdown. 
If you are in, get out, and don't lose any time about it ! 
If you are out, don't get in ! And ]\Iaster Harnack 
savs that the old train is sound and safe ! 



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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Christ Triumphant. 

The following fragment is from a sermon preached 
to his people by Dr. Behrends on Sunday morning, 
February 2^, 1890. It is introduced here to show 
the earnest spirit in which he prosecuted his work as 
a minister of Jesus Christ. 

Text. — Jesus answered and said, This will come not because 
of me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world : 
Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be 
lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. — John xiv, 
30-32. 

The death of Christ was a judgment upon the 
Roman world, the world of the Jew, and it overthrew 
the ideas of the world with it. What was the world 
of that day? What was its piety? Caiaphas was a 
representative of that. What was its civil order? 
Nero was a type of that. There is your religion and 
politics. All the civil rule turned into irresponsible 
tyranny, and by these two men, the entire and com- 
bined authority of the Roman court, Jesus Christ was 
put to death. You say it was cruel ? Yes. But it was 
legally done. It was legally sanctioned by the court 
of Sanhedrin, on the ground of blasphemy; by the 
court of Pilate, on the ground of treason, and the same 
thing may be traced in the persecutions of the Chris- 
tian disciples that followed Christ. I think we mis- 
understand the temper of the Roman Empire as we 
read of those terrible sufferings which the early Chris- 
tians endured. It may be that with Nero it was simply 

275 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

the innate love of cruelty. That bloodthirsty wild 
beast in human form delighted in lighting his gardens 
with the bodies of men and women covered with pitch, 
and set on fire. Trajan writes to Pliny: ''Don't per- 
secute the Christian, but execute the Roman law." 
Marcus Aurelius was one of the best men who ever 
sat in the chair of Rome, but he was indifferent to the 
sufferings of the Christians of his time, because the 
Roman law recognized no religion except as in some 
way it was associated with a distinct, independent 
national life. Religion was political. No religion was 
lawful which was not the religion of a distinct nation. 
The Jew w^as tolerated. The Christian was an anar- 
chist, I mean politically. Just as you cry, "Down with 
anarchy !" so the Roman said : ''Down with the Chris- 
tian ! He is insisting upon setting up a religion of his 
own. Is every man to set up a god for himself and 
shall every man have the right to say how God shall 
be worshipped? Why, society will all go to pieces.'' 
That was the Roman speech. Christianity was an ille- 
gal religion, and the emperors were right when they 
said: "No matter upon whom the law falls, no matter 
upon how many people it falls, if we are to preserve 
the integrity of our political government we must 
execute the law, and execute it faithfully.'' 

Now, you know there is no better way of bringing 
a bad law into disrepute and preparing the way for 
its overthrow than rigidly to enforce it. When any 
law on your statute book begins to smite good men 
in great numbers, that moment a seed is rooted in 
the minds and hearts of men which keeps on growing 
until the revolt comes and the law has to go, no matter 

276 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

what its sanctity or its antiquity may be. There is 
something in goodness. It has in it a higher power 
than any law you can make on your statute book. By 
and by men will say that the law is to the injury of 
society. That is just the way it worked in those days. 
Those days are so far off that they do not seem real 
to us. But the same principles worked in human 
minds then that work now. You have only got to 
imagine that you lived then, and imagine what your 
thoughts would have been, and you have got exactly 
the thoughts that those people had fifteen hundred 
years ago. When we read about the conversion of 
Constantine, we think it w^as a miracle. It was a 
wonderful revolt, but nothing else was to have been ex- 
pected. This bad law had worked itself out until the 
people rose in their might and protested against it. It 
may be that the devil is perfectly willing that the 
better elements of society shall be crushed out and 
finally utterly eliminated, but men are not so far gone 
in wickedness yet that they will permit it. There is 
a good deal of depravity in this world, but I tell you, 
after all, man is not a devil, and the fear of the spirit 
of God is what works in human minds and hearts and 
consciences. And so Constantine, who was a very 
sagacious man and who saw exactly what the con- 
dition of things was, said : ''We cannot afiford to keep 
on administering and executing this old law,'' and, 
therefore, by one stroke of his pen he swept it from 
the statute books. That was forgiving this world. 
That was casting out the prince of this world, who 
ceased then and there. The blood of the martyrs had 
become the seed of the church, and out of that seed 

277 



THE CHRIST OF XIXETEEX CEXTURIES 

had grown a host which it was impossible for the 
sword of Rome to destroy, and so, from sheer neces- 
sity, when Constantine became the sole emperor of 
the Roman Empire, he granted toleration to the Chris- 
tian religion. 

Xow, that result, secured by the martyrs, was begun 
with the death of Jesus Christ. The death of Christ 
was a mighty and almighty appeal to the human con- 
science. ]^Ien must have said: "The civilization by 
which you put a man to death, and such a man as He, 
under process of law, is a mockery of justice and of 
humanity." Thus the devil may have thought he had 
played a pretty sharp game, but, after all, he suc- 
ceeded only in undermining his own authority, for 
in the reaction that speedily followed the remaining 
temper of the civilization of the world of that day 
was seen to be diabolic. [Men sprang away from it as 
in horror. Such a thing as that, friends, and I have 
said it here before, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, in 
Jerusalem, by the united legal authority of Jew and 
Roman, could not take place anywhere on the face 
of the earth to-day. It certainly could not take place 
in those nations whose civilization plants them in the 
van of human progress. You could not think of 
such a thing taking place in Great Britain. Germany, 
France, or in the United States, or anywhere. The 
temper of the masses is against it. There has been a 
revolution of human thought and of public opinion. 
There are a great many things to-day that are very 
bad and that need uprooting, but, for myself, I will 
not close my eyes to the fact that the forces in our 
modern civilization are very different from the forces 

2/8 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

that ruled in the world i,8oo years ago. What has 
done it? The death of Christ. It was the judg- 
ment of the world that is dead, and by it the prince 
of the world was cast out, and Jesus Christ took his 
place. This is only negative. The death of Jesus 
Christ was a power of expulsion. I want you to look 
for a moment or two at the positive side of it. It was 
a power of attraction, and it is to-day the most marvel- 
ous power of attraction of which we know. It drew 
all men unto Him. It fixed attention upon what He 
saw, upon what He had said, upon what He had done, 
and light and criticism has never been thrown upon 
any single human character, in all the history of the 
world, so fiercely and so incessantly as it has been 
upon the Carpenter of Galilee, the Prophet of Naz- 
areth, for these i,8oo years. 

It is too late in the day for any man to deny or doubt 
that in all the long procession of great souls, Jesus 
Christ is the greatest, the foremost figure in all human 
history. His teaching and examples have been pro- 
lific of good wherever they have been spoken of and 
known. Everybody believes them. Every theory of 
self-deception or of insane enthusiasm has broken 
down under its own weight. There are men to-day 
who will have nothing to do with the church, who 
believe that all ministers are false at heart and scoun- 
drels — men who take His Bible, yours and mine, and 
tear it into tatters, but who are hushed into awe when 
they are brought face to face with Jesus Christ. That 
was not true an hundred years ago, but it is true to- 
day. I have sometimes thought that these very men, 
whose blasphemies so pain us, worship the Son of 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

God in their hearts, after all. When they come face 
to face with Him, there comes a divine silence, which 
quiets their thoughts and prevents their lips from 
saying anything, except of homage to His excellence. 
What is there in the life of Christ that you can find 
fault with? What is there in the Sermon on the 
Mount and in His other teachings that any of you 
dissent from? If we only live as Christ lived, wouldn't 
this world be a heaven ? Just think what Christ stands 
for in the gospels. Take His teachings, take His 
spirit. Do they not commend themselves to every- 
body? The influence of that life of His, transfigured 
by His death and resurrection, is not confined to the 
circle of those who make a profession of it. That 
influence radiates far and near. It has saturated pub- 
lic opinion. It rides in a royal chariot, through all the 
heights of modern literature. Our whole moral life is 
transfused and transfigured by the spirit of the Son 
of God, the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood 
of man. These things have become common phrases 
of our modern speech. He first voiced them in clear, 
trumpet tones, and He was the first to illustrate them 
in His personal life. 

I say, the attractive influence of Jesus Christ to-day 
is wider than the influence which he exerts upon those 
whose names are upon the rolls of the church, and I 
have sometimes felt that one thing which the Christian 
Church ought to do is to widen its lines until it takes 
in all whom the spirit of Christ practically reaches. 
Christianity to-day is a bigger thing than the Chris- 
tian Church. It is vastly larger than any system of 
doctrine, and larger than all systems of doctrine. I 

280 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

believe there are scores of men who have never been 
baptized who are just as really the disciples of Christ 
as any whose names are inscribed on the church rolls, 
and my heart leaps for joy when I recognize how 
the influence of Jesus Christ is more and more per- 
vading society, the unconverted portion of it, as we 
call it, but which is really more thoroughly saturated 
with the spirit of Christ than many of us suppose. 
I want to see the lines of the church sweep as widely 
as the lines of the influence of Jesus Christ. I do not 
think it is to our credit that there are twice as many 
women church members as there are men. There is 
something wrong. Doctrinal and experimental tests 
have been made which are unscriptural, and are un- 
warranted, and the level sense of our men has said: 
''We won't submit to them.'' There is but one test. 
Jesus Christ is the door to the sheepfold. I want to 
see these barriers down and I believe that the time is 
coming. I am going to do my level best here, or any- 
where else, to say these things right out. Let them 
fall into your hearts. Let them quicken your tongue, 
that you may communicate them to your children, 
until we shall come to the time when this whole world 
shall ring with the acclamations of the Carpenter of 
Galilee, the Prophet of Nazareth. Let the whole earth 
ring with the glory of God, as the waters cover the 
face of the deep. 



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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

God's Love First. 

This was the last sermon preached by Dr. Behrends, 
immediately preceding his address in Carnegie Hall, 
Sunday morning, April 29, 1900. 

Text. — We love Him because He first loved us. — John 
iv, 19. 

History furnishes no parallel to the deep and earnest 
affection which Jesus Christ kindles in the hearts of 
His disciples. There have been many great and brave 
men who have won for themselves an admiration bor- 
dering on adoration; whose names have sunk deep 
down into the grateful memories of nations; whose 
praises continue to be sung in ode and oration ; whose 
deeds are honored in shaft and tablet; such men as 
Nelson and the Duke of Wellington among the 
English; such men as Washington and Lincoln and 
Grant among ourselves. And yet, greatly as we revere 
and honor such men, we revere and honor them as 
leaders of an army whose rank and file command our 
grateful respect. Not single handed did Nelson battle 
and break the navies of Spain and of France. Not 
single handed did the Iron Duke crush Napoleon at 
Waterloo. Not single handed did Washington secure 
the political independence of the American colonies. 
Not single handed did Sherman march to the sea, 
cutting the Confederacy in two and proving its hope- 
less collapse. Not single handed did Sheridan clear 
the Shenandoah Valley, nor Grant march on to Rich- 
mond and Appomattox. The army is greater than its 
commanders. The people are greater than their most 
illustrious leaders. Here appears the solitariness of 

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Jesus Christ. He is greater than the army which He 
commands ; greater than the flock which He leads. 
He creates the constituency of which He is the head. 
With His own blood He has bought the church, which 
is His body and over which He rules. Single handed 
he grappled with and overthrew the powers of sin, 
death and hell, which held us in helpless captivity. 
Single handed He wrenched the gate of our prison 
house, smiting the chains of our captivity, securing for 
us an everlasting redemption. We are not saved be- 
cause we are brave; we are brave because we are 
saved. And because of this. He kindles in the hearts 
of men a devotion which is unique and which He 
claims as His just due. Strange and startling is the 
paradox when He tells us that we must hate our kin- 
dred, and our own lives, if we would be His disciples. 
The meaning is perfectly clear. Nothing may come 
between Him and us. Our one duty is to follow Him, 
even if that lead us into orphanage, and homelessness, 
and exile, and death. Thousands have been equal to 
the alternative, and have not complained. Whether 
we regard the intensity of the devotion, or the num- 
bers who have been mastered by its high enthusiasm, 
or the permanence of the great and mighty affection — 
the love which Jesus Christ has kindled, and still 
kindles, has no second. 

Its intensity is unique. It sinks deeper down, it 
rises to loftier heights, it has a more fiery touch and a 
more flaming ardor than any other passion which can 
move the soul. It has done more than make men will- 
ing to die for Him. Men have died for their kindred, 
for their friends, for fatherland and humanity. Every 

283 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

great and good cause has had its martyrs. But the 
martyrs of the Christian faith have faced and endured 
death with a pecuHar exultation. The devotion which 
Christ commands is hke a shoreless and fathomless 
sea, like the air and sky above and around us — limit- 
less in all directions. There are no reservations in it. 
The best men have their weaknesses and faults. They 
cannot command our unqualified admiration and at- 
tachment. We maintain our independence in our 
loyalty. We cannot follow them everywhere. We 
know the faults of those whom we love, and hence 
there is no love without its pain. And the noblest 
causes have their limitations, unable to exhaust the 
enthusiasm of which the soul is capable. But the 
devotion which Christ kindles in human hearts is a 
devotion which wakes no shame, and which gives free 
rein to a boundless enthusiasm. 

This love, remarkable for its intensity, is equally 
unique because of the numbers whom it has stirred 
with its high and ardent devotion. We have ceased to 
count them. They are a multitude which no man 
can number, and they belong to every tribe and tongue, 
to every age and clime. 

The heroes of one people are not the heroes of other 
nations. Their countrymen perpetuate their memory, 
but the applause becomes more and more faint beyond 
the national boundaries. Only in England and her 
colonies do you find the columns of Nelson. Only in 
Holland are you reminded of William of Orange. 
Only in France is Napoleon ascendant. Only in Ger- 
many does Frederick the Great kindle pride. Only 
in Russia does Peter the Great stir the popular heart. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Only in the American Republic do Washington, and 
Lincoln, and Grant provoke the ardor of patriotic de- 
votion. But Christ lays His pierced palms upon all 
the nations, and everywhere there is the same instant 
and intense response. 

Not only are national boundaries overleaped, but 
the fiercest national prejudices and hatreds are broken 
down. It remains and must continue to be the mira- 
cle of history that a Jew, branded as a criminal by 
the Roman law, and dying a death of shame, re- 
pudiated by His own countrymen, has commanded a 
personal devotion which has counted death for Him 
a crown of glory. The fact remains, explain it as you 
please. The world never had any love for the Jew. 
It has always despised him, and ostracized him. We 
do not love him now. Yet it is a Jew at whose feet 
we bow, and under whose banner we march. In 
Christ, and in His cross, we glory. At that point the 
fiercest prejudices have given way; and it is simple 
truth that by the cross the middle wall of partition 
has been broken down, and the treaty of peace has 
been signed and sealed in the blood of our atonement. 

National boundaries have been overleaped ; the fierc- 
est prejudices have been broken down, by the love 
which Christ kindles in the hearts of men. And it has 
effaced the deeper and darker shades of race dis- 
tinctions. For such distinctions there are still, deep- 
ening in their grooves, and showing no signs of dis- 
appearance. The European, the Asiatic or Mongohan, 
and the African are like so many closed circles, touch- 
ing each other at single points, but remaining distinct 
and separate. They tolerate each other; but they do 

285 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

not assimilate. We shut the gates against the Mon- 
goHan, and our wisest statesmen are perplexed with 
the African problem within our borders. That prob- 
lem has but one safe solution : the black man must 
become an intelligent Christian. The Mongolian 
problem must be solved in the same way : China must 
be converted to Jesus Christ. Then, and not till then, 
can you open wide the gateway of the Pacific and let 
Asia come in. No treaties can bring in the age of 
universal brotherhood. But the love which Christ 
kindles is drawing men to each other by drawing them 
to His cross, and holding them there. 

Nor does it stop here. It has broken down, and is 
breaking down, the spirit of caste and class. It is the 
only passion which has fused the race. It subjugates 
alike the young and the old, the rich and the poor, the 
ignorant and the cultured. We gravitate into classes 
— social, literary, political, ecclesiastical. Jesus Christ 
masters us all ; and the unity for which so many pray, 
and about which so many talk, is the most certain of 
all facts, if we will only look down deep enough — as 
real and mighty as the uniform throb of the sea 
beneath the wildest commotion, as real and mighty as 
the swing of the tides flooding every bay and inlet of 
the coast. 

Once more. This devotion, so intense and univer- 
sal, has proved to be remarkable for its permanence 
and persistence. It has staying power. Nothing 
wears it out. Two thousand years have not diminished 
its ardor. Time is the fiercest of sieves, w^innowing 
the grain from the chaff. Time is the fire of God, 
the crucible of history, by which all things are tried. 

286 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Time is the day of judgment on earth, whose silent 
Hps pronounce the final sentence. Thrones crumble 
before its whisper, and the dungeons become the seats 
of power. The emperor withers under its curse, the 
martyr is vested with the scepter and purple. Time 
changes our verdicts and moderates our enthusiasm, 
even for our national heroes. But there is no lessen- 
ing of the devotion which Jesus Christ inspires. They 
loved Him, who saw Him and heard Him, and who 
were with Him on the mount. We love Him, too, we 
who have not seen Him. They loved Him and died 
for Him. We love Him, and we, too, would die for 
Him. (Armenia's soil is red with the blood of those 
who in our day would not deny Him.) They wor- 
shipped Him in cave and catacomb, and we worship 
Him in freer temples, but with equal ardor. Each 
Lord's Day wakes our praises and prayers anew, mak- 
ing for us a perpetual Easter. 

This love for Christ is the mightiest of all motives 
to holy living, and to unselfish service. It builds us 
up into Christ's likeness. It makes us ready and eager 
to further His cause and kingdom, at home and 
abroad, until a redeemed world worships at His feet. 

But how comes it that such a love is here? What 
is the secret of its intensity, of its universaHty, of its 
persistence? ''Ex nihilo nihil fit." Such a devotion 
is not uncaused. Your will and mine has not gener- 
ated it. The will of the race did not give it birth. It 
is not of us, because it has conquered us. It is but 
man's answer to the speech of God. We love Him 
because He first loved us. Herein is love, here is its 
fountain head, here is its tremendous urgency, here 

287 



s 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

is its unquenchable ardor, here is its unfathomable 
depth and ceaseless flow — not that we loved God, but 
that God loved us, and gave His Son to be the propiti- 
ation for our sins. When flint and steel strike, the 
spark of fire is born. When Christ's love for men 
smites the heart, the flame of love is kindled. And 
this love of God in Christ passes understanding, in the 
intensity of its ardor, in the imiversality of its scope, 
in the permanence and persistence of its life. 

Its intensity is measured by the fact that God sent 
His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. To die 
voluntarily for those who hate us, and whom we have 
good reason for hating, is the supreme evidence of 
love. Christ died for us, while w^e were yet enemies. 
And He died not from necessity, but by deliberate 
choice and self-surrender; not under a sudden impulse, 
but under the pressure of an eternal purpose and 
decree, in which He had a conscious part. His de- 
scent into the manger was His acceptance of the cross. 
And He died as a propitiatory offering for our sins. 
His death is not a tragedy over which we weep; His 
death is not a heroism which we applaud; His death 
is the moral dynamite which has cleared the path to 
our eternal salvation. I hint at no theory of the 
atonement; perhaps the created reason will never 
be able to sound the awful mystery; but this much 
stands sure — Christ died that we might live. And if 
that be true, how can we help loving Him ? 

Never was love so intense, and nev^er was love so 
universal, as God's love for men in Christ. No soul is 
untouched by it. It arches every cradle, it broods over 
every grave. Does some one say, ''The death of Christ 

288 



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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

is a propitiation for our sins/' for the sins of the elect, 
for the sins of those who beheve, eternally foreknown 
and predestinated to the adoption of grace ? I will let 
John answer him: ''If any man sin, we have an advo- 
cate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous ; and 
He is the propitiation for our sins ; and not for our sins 
only, but for the sins of the whole world." That is 
explicit enough, and this universalism penetrates and 
dominates the entire Scriptures. It is upon this uni- 
versal love of God for all men that election builds, and 
without which election would be cruelly incarnate. 
Christ died for all men; and all men will be judged by 
Him whose palms were pierced, and whose heart was 
broken, when He bore their sins in His own body on 
the tree. This is the great thought throbbing at the 
heart of modern Christian thought, which theology 
has done so much to obscure. For you and for me, 
it is a matter of life and death that we emphasize it — 
God is no respecter of persons. 

And this love of God for men is as permanent and 
persistent as it is intense and universal. Time does 
not bound it. The grave does not bury it. It had no 
beginning and it has no end. Some have inferred from 
this the salvation of all, or an endless probation. But 
in these inferences the old fatalism reappears, and man 
is regarded as not really free. God's patience is sup- 
posed at last to wear out man's obstinacy. That leaves 
only the semblance of freedom. Scripture affirms with 
equal explicitness the infinite love of God for all men, 
the universal scope of the redeeming purpose and the 
absolute personal responsibility of man, the plenary 
power of the human will. God creates no soul to 

289 
10 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

damn it ; God passes no soul by ; God has no pleasure 
in the death of any, but they who will not hear and 
heed have only a fearful looking for of judgment. 
There is grace for all who will ; there is no promise 
for the impenitent and obstinate, and an endless pro- 
bation will find no hospitable welcome with any one 
who appreciates the awful urgency of the Scriptural 
warning that now is the day of salvation. But God 
changes not in His eternal love, even for such as 
perish in their sins. Their perdition fills even His 
heart with a real and eternal sadness. For if Christ 
wept over the impending ruin of Jerusalem, much 
more must the tears of God fall upon those who bury 
themselves in the grave of an eternal death. 

There was a time when I could not make real to 
myself such expressions of Scripture as attributed 
pity, regret, sorrow and the like to God. I had been 
taught to regard such phrases as anthropomorphic and 
anthropopathic, formidable five and six footed words, 
suggesting that we attribute our infirmities to God. 
For years I was held in the grip of a doctrine of divine 
immutability, according to which the blessedness of 
God contained no element of real pain. An essay of 
Domer's set me free. The Scripture statements are 
true. God would be less than man were there no 
laughter and no tears in His love. He rejoices over 
the penitent sinner. He is sad when men hate wisdom 
and love death. His tears fall upon the sepulcher of 
eternal night. I do not envy the man who does not 
carry a burdened heart, and I crave a God to whom sin 
is sin, to whom sorrow is sorrow, to whom death is 
death; who never can cease to remember, and must 

290 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

always recall, with anguish of heart, those whom His 
infinite mercy could not reach and who tore themselves 
away from His redeeming grasp. 

Here, in God's care for men, is the secret of purity, 
the source of power, the seal of success. All the re- 
sources of heaven and of eternity are pledged to him 
who wills to be saved. And because of this love, the 
banner under w^hich we march must and will wave 
over every citadel of wickedness and cruelty, at home 
and abroad. This gives us courage in every good 
cause. Righteousness must triumph, in city and state 
and nation and the world. It will have its Gethsemanes 
and Calvarys, but it will also have its Easter and 
Olivet. The meek shall inherit the earth ; not the idle 
and indifferent and unresisting, but the meek, the 
patient in tribulation, those who watch and wait, hope 
and pray, work and endure. Armenian massacres 
cannot alter the issue. Japanese inconstancy cannot 
check the advance. Chinese exclusiveness and som- 
nolency cannot bar the gospel out. The night is far 
spent; the day is at hand. For after earthquake and 
tempest, after trumpets and vials of wrath, shall come, 
descending out of heaven to earth, the fair city of 
God, the New Jerusalem, with gates of pearl and 
streets of gold, whose light shall be the Lamb of God, 
who died for the sins of men ! 

I am a conservative in Eschatology. If I were not, 
I should not say what I am about to say. With the 
New Testament in my hands, I cannot believe that all 
men will be saved. With the New Testament in my 
hands, I cannot believe in the annihilation of the 
wicked. With the New Testament in my hands, I 

291 



THE CHRIST OF XIXETEEX CEXTURIES 

cannot believe in probation after death. So much as to 
what I cannot believe. Positively, I believe that the 
soul is immortal, that holiness constitutes blessed- 
ness, and that Jesus Christ died for all whom He will 
judge. And now, with orthodoxy unchallenged and 
beyond criticism, I wish to add, without a particle of 
reservation, that Eschatology has nothing whatever 
to do with the Xew Testament theory of missions. 
The fathers made foreign missions an appendage to 
their Eschatology. They were wrong in doing it, and 
we certainly ought not to perpetuate their errors. We 
need not repudiate either their Eschatology or their 
missionary enthusiasm : but, for one, I do smite the 
logical link by which they united the two. I take 
Jesus Christ to mean just what He says, no more and 
no less, when He commands me to disciple all nations. 
The eternal destinies of men He has not placed in 
our keeping. Judgment is His unique, awful, un- 
shared prerogative. In it we have no part. The 
keys of death and hades hang upon His girdle, and 
woe to the hands that dare touch them ! I can trust 
Him. 

"There's a wideness in God's mercy. 

Like the wideness of the sea ; 
There's a kindness in His justice, 

Which is more than liberty. 

"For the love of God is broader 
Than the measure of man's mind. 
And the heart of the Eternal 
Is most wonderfully kind.'' 

I am glad that the Crucified is the Judge. I am 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

glad that He has not imposed upon me this intolerable 
burden ; that He does not punish others for my neglect, 
and that He simply bids me preach His gospel to every 
creature. The question for us to settle is not whether 
there is a probation after death for such as in this Hfe 
do not hear the gospel, but whether the present mor- 
tal life is not our only period of probation in which 
we can preach that gospel to the heathen. The ques- 
tion is not whether the heathen can be saved without 
the gospel, but whether we can be saved if we do not 
preach the gospel to the heathen, as Christ has com- 
manded us to do. The woe is upon us. We certainly 
deserve to be beaten with many stripes if, knowing 
our Lord's will, we refuse to obey it. 

The eternal destinies of men are not in our keeping. 
The pierced palms of Jesus Christ hold them. But 
upon us He lays the duty to preach the gospel to every 
creature, and so to preach it as to secure its accept- 
ance. We are beginning to see that our campaign is 
bounded by the earth and by the mortal life of men. 
The dead are beyond our ministry. The unborn are 
not within our reach. The living, the living, we must 
save! We are beginning to see that the New Jeru- 
salem, builded of God in the heavens, is to be located 
in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in America, in Australia, 
and in all the islands of the sea! God will see to the 
building of the eternal empire ; we must build its 
ample vestibule in a regenerated earth ! 



293 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

The Effect on the Churches of Supporting 
Foreign Missions. 

Address delivered by Dr. Behrends before the Ecu- 
menical Conference, in Carnegie Hall, New York, 
Tuesday, May i, 1900. 

It is idle, at this late day, to challenge the propriety 
or the wisdom of foreign missions, in any of their 
departments — evangelistic, educational, medical, phil- 
anthropic. We have put our hands to the plow and 
there can be no turning back. When the American 
flag shook out its starry folds at Santiago and Manila, 
the question of sovereign and responsible occupancy 
was settled. Retreat and compromise have become 
impossible. The die has been cast. The white man's 
burden is upon us. For where the flag flies there 
the nation ralHes. And wherever the cross of Christ 
has been planted, there the Christian host must rally 
for its support and defense. Retreat and compromise 
have forever become impossible. Universal conquest, 
or abject surrender, are the only alternatives. 

The disciplining of the nations is a task of over- 
whelming magnitude. It will change the face of 
human history. But it is also profoundly affecting the 
religious life of our churches at home, and it will 
affect that life more and more profoundly with each 
succeeding decade. There is in this movement a dy- 
namic energy, which will produce, which is producing, 
slowly, silently, steadily, unconsciously, and in spite 
of us, the most radical ecclesiastical and theological 
revolutions. Upon three of these, the most important, 
in my judgment, I propose briefly and hurriedly to 
touch. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

History is the logic of God. And foreign missions, 
as a part of that logic, are opening the eyes of our 
churches as to what constitutes their divine calling. 
Compassion for the perishing heathen is giving way 
to the passion for universal conquest, and the passion 
for universal conquest has been born of the infinite, 
impartial love of Christ for the world, mastering our 
souls. The travail of His soul is becoming our travail. 
What are we bent upon doing? To save men. But 
what does that mean? It may mean to get men into 
heaven, and it may mean to get heaven into men. It 
means both. The ultimate aim is to get men into 
heaven; the immediate aim is to get heaven into men. 
The latter may be said to be our specific task. We are 
awakening to the fact that it is our business to save 
mortal men and women from sin, and to establish them 
in the righteousness of God, which is by the faith of 
Jesus Christ. Our sole task is the historical triumph 
of the gospel in all lands. 

I pass to a second great change which is coming 
over our religious life at home. So great a task, from 
which no church, and no disciple, can be excused, 
makes co-operation an immediate and imperative ne- 
cessity. We are in direst straits. The fathers prayed 
for open doors. They are open. We have been pray- 
ing for men. The men are here, clamoring to be sent. 
We cannot send them because our treasuries are 
empty. What is the trouble? I will tell you. The 
logic of God, in the history and present condition of 
foreign missions, is hammering us into co-operation. 
Comity is rapidly becoming an obsolete idea. That, 
perhaps, may have been sufficient, so long as conti- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

nents and islands were isolated. But the isolation 
is rapidly disappearing. Steam and electricity are 
demolishing all Chinese walls. The world is 
becoming every man's parish. History is laughing 
our comities and compromises out of court. What 
right have you and I to limit our respective fields by 
geographical or ethnological lines? All souls are 
mine, all souls are yours, as truly as they are Christ's. 
You owe a debt to every one of them. All lands are 
mine, all lands are yours, as truly as they are the 
Lord's. You are debtor to every one of them. The 
round globe, every square foot of it, is my parish, and 
it is yours, by Christ's commission. I have no right 
to bar you out; you have no right to bar me out. 
Comity ! I like not the word. It is veneered selfish- 
ness. It is disguised haughtiness. I like the word 
comity as little as I do the word toleration. I tolerate 
you and you tolerate me? I want not toleration. I 
claim my free-born citizenship, as a son of God, in 
every province of the great republic of Jesus Christ ! 
We may as well face the problem. Comity is a snare 
and a delusion. You cannot enforce it. It will col- 
lapse under pressure. It has collapsed a thousand 
times ; and collapse is all that comity is good for ; for 
it is wrong in principle and it is unworkable in prac- 
tice. Comity means civility, courtesy, politeness. It 
is the code of behavior between rivals. Are we rivals, 
or God's co-laborers? Comity is a covert denial of 
partnership ; and we are partners in the service of 
Christ. Do not misunderstand me. I am not an icon- 
oclast. I would not break up any existing ecclesias- 
tical or missionary organization. But in this matter, 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

at least, I dim di Christian evolutionist. Our methods 
are antiquated and inadequate. There must be a new 
alignment of Christian forces for the impending Ar- 
mageddon; for Armageddon is coming! The times 
call for multitudes in the valley of decision. Fusion is 
what we need ; federation is what we must have ; co- 
operation must become our flaming watchword! Nor 
shall we ever have co-operation abroad until we have 
it at home. I am only stating the problem. I venture 
upon no solution, though the solution is the simplest. 
But, in any case, our creeds and polities must not 
stand in the way of the massing of our Christian 
forces for the redemption of the world. 

Thank God, the hedges are not so thick and high as 
they were fifty years ago. Twenty-five years ago it 
took me fourteen months to nerve myself for the leap 
which carried me over the high and thorny Baptist 
hedge into the Congregational ranks ; to-day one short 
step would carry me back into the dear old camp, 
without any abridgment of my present convictions. 
The Baptists, at least, have not been marking time, 
and they may outrun us all yet, if we do not wake up 
soon. Thank God, the hedges are being clipped 
a little closer and lower every year ! But what I want 
is to have God's ploughshare go through them all, 
tearing them up by the roots, and consigning them to 
the fire for which alone they are fit ! It can be done. 
It ought to be done. It has been done. There was 
once one Church of Christ in Jerusalem. Three thou- 
sand united with it in a single day. Whether they all 
repeated the same creed, whether they were all im- 
mersed, whether they were all confirnied I do not 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

know and I do not care. They all did repent and be- 
lieve on the Lord Jesus Christ. There was once one 
Church of Christ in metropolitan Corinth, and one 
Church of Christ in cosmopolitan Rome. They had 
widest liberty, without schism. I want to see one 
Church of Christ in New York and one Church of 
Christ in London, one Church of Christ in the United 
States, one Church of Christ in the British Empire, 
one Church of Christ in Japan and in China, one 
Church of Christ in all the world ! I shall not live to 
see it, but it is coming. For Jesus Christ is breaking 
down the middle walls of partition, and He is making 
a conquest of us all ! 

Co-operation is coming. It is in the air. When it 
does come it will be free and spontaneous. We are 
nearer to each other than were the fathers, and our 
children will keep up the converging march. Fusion, 
federation, co-operation — it is coming. And when it 
does come it will come as a resistless flood, and then, 
look out for the tramp of the great host and the 
flaming feet of the invincible Captain ! That will usher 
in the millennial day ! That will bring the fulfillment 
of the Apocalyptic vision ! 

And now for a third suggestion. The logic of God, 
as articulated in foreign missions, crowding us to co- 
operation at home and abroad, is also compelling us 
to submit our theological convictions to a fierce and 
fiery sifting. We know too much. Omniscience is 
our foible. We know a lot of things that are not so. 
We talk learnedly and long about fate, and foreknowl- 
edge, and free will, and the like, and not a man in 
this conference knows anything about these things. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Knowledge has puffed us up. We must become as 
little children. We must sit at the feet of Jesus. I 
believe in creeds. I wage no war against them. I never 
signed one. I never expect to. But I will sign any 
creed, and I will do it blindfolded, if you will let me 
sign all the rest. I believe in polities. I can indorse any 
one of them, if you will let me indorse all the rest. I 
am an ecumenical theologian and an ecumenical eccle- 
siastic. When I sign all the creeds, and indorse all 
the polities, that in which they agree is the residuum 
of my positive convictions. As to the things in which 
they do not agree, I simply treat them as wood, hay 
and stubble. 

I have tried the experiment. I have studied every 
one of the creeds, Greek, Latin, Protestant. I have 
dumped them all into the hopper and then set the mill 
a-going. There were things in every one of them that 
could not be ground into meal — wood, hay, stubble, 
sticks, stones, chaff. They were scattered to the 
winds ; but the dear old gospel of the grace of God in 
Jesus Christ came out pure, sweet and wholesome. 
It is in every one of them, and it is the only thing in 
any one of them that is worth preserving and worth 
fighting for. Let us make a bonfire of our theological 
systems. Add to the pile all our ecclesiastical milli- 
nery and machinery and cap the whole with the higher 
criticism of the last one hundred years. Now, strike 
your match ! See, the flame mounts from base to 
summit! Don't call out the fire department. Let it 
burn! Only the wood, hay and stubble will go up in 
smoke, and settle down in ashes. The gold, silver and 
precious stones will not be scarred. The residuum 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

will be a gospel which we can preach to every creature. 
It will not be an ethical system, a code of morals with- 
out energy in it. It will not be an ecclesiastical ma- 
chine. It will not be a critical theory, it will be the 
old, eternal, unchangeable message of salvation by 
Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God, dying for 
us sinners and for our salvation, risen from the dead. 
The Calvinism left in that residuum will not hurt the 
most sensitive, sensible Methodist. It will only be 
infallible omniscience rooted in universal grace, and 
in universal atonement. And the fiery heat pervading 
that residuum will thaw out the iciest Presbyterian, 
making him shout in spite of himself. In Wales, at 
least, they have nominally solved that problem, for 
there I found the Presbyterians calling themselves 
Calvinistic Methodists! Our missionaries are ahead 
of us. They have thought their way through into 
a simpler theology than have we. They have ceased to 
tithe mint, anise, and cummin. They have learned 
that China and Japan will never utter the shibboleths 
of our schools. They take the old Bible, just as it is, 
and with the beating, bleeding heart of Christ encased 
within it, as in a casket of silver, they are flinging it 
into the ranks of the pagan millions ! That simplicity 
must master us. Nor is it difficult to say what that 
ultimate simphcity must be. It will be the primitive 
simplicity. There can be no other. The gospel is 
older than Wesley, older than Calvin, older than 
Luther, older than Augustine, older than Paul, older 
than Moses, older than Abraham. It is as old as God. 
The Lamb was slain before the foundation of the 
world. We must come back to the New Testament, 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

which reveals the secret of the ages. ReHgion must 
centraHze in personal trust in, and devotion to, the 
Personal Christ. He is our Master; He alone. We 
must stop deifying our creeds. We must stop deifying 
our rituals and polities. I am not pleading for an- 
archy. Discipline and order must be. I am not plead- 
ing for bare meeting houses and a bald form of wor- 
ship. Let us have the gospel tent, and the stately 
cathedral. The sanctuary has beauty, as well as 
strength. I am not pleading for doctrinal indifiference. 
I am no lover of jellyfish theology. Intellectual flab- 
biness is a disgrace. But reduce your theology ; you 
must do it ; you can afford to throw away a good deal 
of it; only let what remains be clear, positive, virile 
and aggressive ! 

''Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou 
hast heard of me," wrote Paul to Timothy. It is 
worth repeating. Guard the sacred deposit. Stick to 
the gospels and the epistles. Build upon the founda- 
tion of prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ Himself 
being the chief corner stone. The Scriptures testify 
of Him, they culminate in Him, they are fulfilled in 
Him. Salvation is the Divine Saviour. We never 
tire saying these things. But we persist in applying 
other tests as conditions of fellowship and co-opera- 
tion. We call them subordinate, but we make them 
primary. I say it kindly, but I mean it ; I say it, 
though I fear that you will not heed it ; it is usurpation 
of authority, on the part of anybody, to separate in 
any way, and upon any pretext, whom God hath 
made one in Jesus Christ ! Back to Christ ! We all 
say that. And then, as soon as we get out of Carnegie 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Hall, we put our faith in the keeping of the Augsburg 
Confession, or the Thirty-nine Articles, or the West- 
minster Confession, or the Twenty-five Articles, or the 
Synod of Dort. We feel that we must follow Luther, 
or Calvin, or Wesley, or Roger Williams, or John 
Robinson. We coddle our creeds and canons, even 
when they are moth-eaten. In the name of Christ, and 
for the sake of a perishing world, let us put them 
away in glass cases, and store them upon the shelves 
of a theological museum, and then let us go out and 
preach Christ and Him crucified! Dare you do it? 

Can we have this solid agreement in doctrinal con- 
viction and this universal co-operation in service ? We 
ought to have it, and therefore we can have it, if we 
only will, and we shall have it as soon as we really 
want it. Foreign missions will compel us to have it. 
I wonder what we would all say and do if Jesus Christ 
were to appear, in visible form, upon this platform? 
We should all be on our knees! My lips would be 
dumb. What a hush would fall upon this assembly! 
How we all would hang upon His lips! Would 
we not do what He might bid us do? But is He not 
here? Then is co-operation possible. But we still 
have many masters. We follow the Lord afar oflf. 
We specialize, where He does not. We impose tests, 
when He does not. There seems to be no way out 
of the meshes of the miserable net which we have 
woven for our feet ; and so we stumble where we might 
and ought to run. We creep where we should fly. 
But the meshes are of our own making; and what 
our hands have woven our hands can tear apart. In 
God's name let us do it! We have kissed our chains 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

long enough. Let us smite them and discard them 
forever! We are here, of many creeds. For ten 
days we have been one. That which has made us 
one for ten days can make us one henceforth and can 
make Christendom one! Let the love of Christ con- 
strain us ! And when all who hear His name shall 
have eyes and ears, hands, feet, and lips, bodies and 
souls, for Him, and for Him alone, then shall be true 
what we sometimes sing : 

Like a mighty army moves the Church of God; 
Brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod ; 
We are not divided; all one body we; 
One in hope and doctrine; one in charity. 
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war, 
With the cross of Jesus going on before! 



303 



PART III. 



Half Hours with Jesus. 

A fine example of compactness in pulpit style, of 
theological stateliness, and of lucid instructive power, 
was the series of ''Short Talks to Young People,'' 
also entitled ''Half Hours with Jesus," which Dr. 
Behrends began on Sunday evening, December 4, 
1898. For all the purposes of this book, it has been 
deemed advisable to reproduce these "Short Talks.'' 
They were delivered to large congregations, and sub- 
sequently found their way to at least one hundred 
thousand homes through the press. 



What Jesus Had to Say About His Authority 
AS A Teacher. 

[December 4, 1898.] 
The words of a good man carry authority with 
them. For goodness gives clearness of mental and 
moral vision ; and the most important things which we 
need to know are the things which have to do with 
character and life. Good men are our best teachers, 
because the pure in heart see God. If a good man is 
also a great man, the greatness adds much to his 
authority. In such a case he becomes an oracle upon 
the matters of which he speaks. Great men who are 

304 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

not good are not safe leaders. They may be very 
dangerous guides. But goodness prevents a great 
man from misleading, or deceiving, those who come 
to him for instruction. Moreover, when a man is both 
great and good, he will not assume an authority to 
which he is not entitled. Greatness makes a good 
man unassuming and modest. He will not pretend to 
know when he is ignorant. He will not demand a 
confidence to which he knows he is not entitled. He 
will not claim an obedience to which he has no right. 
Great men, when they are good, are careful not to ex- 
ceed the limits of their just authority, and that makes 
their authority respected. 

Jesus Christ was a good man. No one denies that. 
Jesus Christ was a great man. No one denies that. 
Jesus Christ was the best man who ever lived. Every- 
body grants that. Jesus Christ was the greatest man 
who ever lived. He has won the love of millions and 
the grateful admiration of the world. Everybody ad- 
mits that, unbelievers as well as believers. Jesus 
Christ embodies goodness and greatness in their high- 
est form. And, therefore, we cannot suppose that He 
claimed any authority to which He was not entitled. 
He could not pretend to be what He was not. That 
would destroy His goodness and mar His greatness. 
A good man may hide his greatness ; but he will not 
put on the airs of a king when he is only an ordinary 
subject. Now, Jesus Christ makes the most amazing- 
claims concerning His place and authority. He called 
Himself the Son of God. He declared tliat He came 
from heaven, that from all eternity he was conscious- 
ly in existence. He affirmed His equality with the 

3^^5 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Father. He claimed authority and power to forgive 
sin, to raise the dead, to judge all men. He called 
upon all men to follow Him and be His disciples. He 
commanded that His gospel be preached to every liv- 
ing creature. He declared that He was entitled to 
Divine worship, and told men to pray to Him, to be 
baptized in His name, and to remember His death for 
their salvation. If a great good man is entitled to 
confidence, how much more eagerly ought we to listen 
to a great good man who, by His own repeated and 
frequent declarations, is God in the form of man. 
Mary sat at the feet of Jesus. She did not talk; she 
only listened. That is the thing for every one of us 
to do. Let us hear, that w^e may learn and live ! Let 
His doctrine be our doctrine. Let His faith be our 
faith. Let His patience be our patience. What He 
says let us believe and say. And when He is silent, 
let our lips be reverently sealed. 

As we read the gospels, four things are clearly seen 
to distinguish the w^orks of Jesus as a teacher. 

The first is that He frequently challenges the 
teachings of the scribes. It was their business to in- 
terpret the law^ But they had burdened it with their 
traditions. They had destroyed its simplicity and 
its spirituality. They bound heavy burdens upon the 
shoulders of men. They tithed mint, anise and cum- 
min; they forgot mercy and judgment. They made 
religion formal and burdensome. The Sermon on 
the Mount shows us how Jesus met these men. Every 
paragraph is a trip hammer blow upon some false 
doctrine or false practice. 'T say unto you,'' is the 
ever recurring challenge. Christ stood alone against 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

the doctors of His day. He was a theological re- 
former, a merciless iconoclast. He tore into shreds 
the doctrine which was preached in the synagogues. 
No wonder they hated Him and slandered Him and 
persecuted Him and killed Him. He called them 
hypocrites, blind leaders of the blind, wolves in sheep's 
clothing, bolting and barring the gates of the King- 
dom of God, whited sepulchers, a generation of 
vipers. Of course they raged, gnashed their teeth 
and crucified Him. 

But, in the second place, while Jesus challenged 
the authority of the scribes. He kept in close and con- 
tinued touch with the law and the prophets. In the 
Sermon on the Mount He was careful to state that 
He had not come to destroy the law and the prophets, 
but to fulfill them; that is, to rescue and make plain 
their real meaning. And He was careful to add that 
not one jot or tittle of this Divine message could ever 
perish or pass away, that not one of its least com- 
mandments could be set aside. He tore ofif the band- 
ages from the face and form of truth. He left not one 
mark upon its fair body. He did not lay His little 
finger upon its lips. He quoted Moses and David, and 
Isaiah. Their hands He clasped. Alone He stood 
against the scribes ; but all the prophets were on His 
side and against them. He was a theological reformer, 
but He was at the same time a theological recoverer. 
He went back to the great originals. The streams had 
been polluted; He led men back to the fountains. 
Truth had been put into chains and thrust into a 
dungeon; He tore the bars asunder and smote the 
manacles by the word of His power. The work which 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Elijah and Isaiah and Paul and Luther and Calvin 
and Wesley did within comparatively narrow spheres, 
Jesus did with a hundredfold more intensity and com- 
prehensiveness. He broke the path for them all, and 
they have succeeded in proportion as they have fol- 
lowed in His steps. Thus Jesus was at once the most 
radical and the most conservative of teachers. His 
teaching was new to His time, but it was from ever- 
lasting. And that gave it omnipotent power. 

A third impressive feature in the teaching of Jesus, 
giving to it peculiar authority, is the habitual tone of 
profound personal conviction. There was a ring in 
His speech which men missed in their most learned and 
eloquent teachers. They could not keep their eyes 
away from Him. They hung upon His lips. Nor did 
He confuse them by the ornaments of diction, or the 
intricacy of His logic. The common people heard him. 
gladly. His illustrations were the simplest, drawn 
from the fields and the market and the ordinary occu- 
pations of men. He did not speculate. He indulged 
in no fancies. He had something to say and He said 
it. He did not say it all, but He said what was needful. 
There was ever in Him a reserve of utterance which 
told upon what He did say. And what He did say he 
said with a burning earnestness, with flashing eye 
often, and outstretched hand, an earnestness which 
was spontaneous and which cannot be simulated. 

We know when a man means what he says, when 
he speaks with the authority of profound personal 
conviction. The whole body, to every nerve fiber and 
to finger tips, becomes an animated gesture. Tone, 
look, gesture, all tell the story. There is no ranting, 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

nothing is forced. All is natural, quiet, intense, under 
perfect control, even when the sentences rush like 
rivers of fire. Thus did our Lord speak, and His hear- 
ers said : ''Never man spake like this man." The secret 
was a simple one. He spake what He knew ; He testi- 
fied of what He had seen. He saw the darkness of hu- 
man ignorance. He knew the deadly curse of sin, the 
depths of men's hearts were naked to His eye. He 
knew the infinite mercy of God, the boundlessness of 
the divine compassion. He read the secrets of the 
eternal future. Other teachers quoted from the rabbis ; 
He never did. He read His own soul. He read the 
hearts of His hearers. He read the mind of God, and 
then He opened His lips. No wonder men listened 
and gave thanks. 

One more thing remains to be said. Jesus taught, 
not only with the authority of profound personal con- 
viction, but with the authority derived from the cer- 
tainty that His message was the message of the Eter- 
nal God. His message was His own, and yet it was 
not His own. It had been given to Him by the Father. 
With that eternal authority. He made every word of 
His own thrill ; so that when He spake it was God 
who spoke. This is as amazing as it is assuring and 
comforting. For it is a blessed thing that in Jesus 
Christ God speaks by human lips and in a human 
tongue. Such speech is invested with primary and 
perennial authority. Men do well to listen, angels do 
well to listen, when God Incarnate in the flesh of man 
opens His mouth. Mary sat at His feet. She did 
well. Let us take our station there, and listen as did 
she ! 

309 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

What Jesus Had to Say About the Old Testa- 
ment. 

[December ii, 1898.] 
One fact stands out, clear and convincing, in the 
present critical debate concerning the authorship, date 
and manner of composition, and authority, of the books 
of the Old Testament. It is that the Canon had been 
fixed long before the time of Christ. The Old Testa- 
ment of the synagogue was the Old Testament of the 
Christian Church. It passed unchanged from one 
to the other. It is undisputed, and it is indisputable, 
that for at least two thousand years no book, no chap- 
ter, no verse, has been added to, or taken from, the 
sacred Scriptures of the Jews. Scholars are endeavor- 
ing to trace their earlier history up to the time of Moses 
and Abraham, two thousand years or more, and even 
beyond that to the first appearance of man. It has 
proved to be a task of amazing magnitude, and if we 
date the critical movement to Astruc, 145 years have 
been devoted to it ; if to Spinoza, 228 years. It would 
seem as if the literary problem ought to have been 
solved by this time. So far is it from having been 
solved, that all competent scholars are agreed that the 
problem grows in intricacy as it is studied. Astruc 
found two documents in the Pentateuch ; ten times that 
number are not enough, as a working basis, for the 
modern critic. He has a first and a second Elohist; 
then a Jahvist, and then a Redactor, combining and 
revising the work of his three predecessors. He has a 
first and a second Deuteronomist ; and then another 
Redactor, combining and revising the work of his six 
predecessors. Then he comes to the Priestcode, and 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

here he is lost in a labyrinth of conjectures. The legis- 
lation bears traces of the highest antiquity, while its 
present form is located a thousand years after Moses. 
It is claimed to be a statutory evolution, covering a 
period of at least fifteen hundred years. We codify our 
laws by dropping out statutes which have become obso- 
lete or have been repealed. The Priestcode is supposed 
to combine the laws of fifty successive generations, 
without reference to their chronological order. The 
simple statement of the problem is enough to make 
clear the tremendous difficulty of the undertaking, and 
an increasing number of students is coming to regard 
the problem as hopelessly insoluble. 

But, meanwhile, the Old Testament, as it lies in 
our hands, has held its present place at least two 
thousand years; and from the gospels we can learn 
what Jesus Christ had to say about it, and how he used 
it. The problems of literary criticism need not disturb 
us. Conjecture rules this entire field. There are only 
two questions which are of practical importance. 
These concern the truth of the history and the author- 
ity of the doctrine; and against neither has criti- 
cism been able to make a successful assault. The 
doctrine has held its ground by its own weight. 
It is its own evidence. The history has held its ground 
by its simplicity and interior consistency; while the 
proposed reconstructions have thrown the material 
into inextricable confusion, have left everything hang- 
ing in air and made the whole story unintelligible. So 
that the history, like the doctrine, shines in its own 
light. 

Jesus Christ was a man of one book, as He was 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

a man of one idea. He came to seek and to save the 
lost, and to give His life a ransom for many. He 
came to fulfill the law and the prophets, to make clear 
and complete their divine teaching. His educational 
advantages were limited. Nazareth was poorly 
equipped in schools, and Christ grew up in a car- 
penter's home. There were famous schools in Jeru- 
salem, but the poverty of His condition placed them 
beyond His reach. He could read, and He could 
write ; but books were few in the Galilean village. The 
synagogue was His great mental opportunity, where 
He became familiar with the Scriptures of the Old 
Testament. From them He frequently quoted, to them 
He frequently appealed; and, so far as the record 
shows. He never quoted from, nor appealed to, any 
other book. Paul was sent to the school of Gamaliel, 
the most famous teacher of his day; and his epistles 
bear the traces of his Rabbinical teaching. Nothing 
of the kind can be discovered in our Lord's sayings. 
At Athens, Paul quoted a line from an obscure Greek 
poet ; and while this line may have been caught up by 
Paul as a popular current phrase, his residence at 
Tarsus and his standing as a free-born Roman citizen 
make it more than probable that he had some acquaint- 
ance with Greek and Roman literature. The dis- 
courses of Christ are wholly wanting in the most 
shadowy suggestions of any such knowledge. They 
do reveal a close and comprehensive knowledge of the 
contents of the Old Testament. In the fragments 
which the gospels contain, there are quotations from 
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, 
First Samuel, First Kings, Second Chronicles, 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Proverbs, Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Hosea, 
Jonah, Zachariah and Malachi. The Levitical law he 
referred to as Mosaic legislation. The patriarchs were 
spoken of as historical personages. The wilderness 
life, with its miraculous supply of manna and of water, 
was assumed to have been real. The Psalter is spoken 
of as containing hymns from David's pen. That 
Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by the fiery 
hail, that Jonah preached in Nineveh, that the Queen 
of Sheba visited Solomon in his royal court, that 
Naaman was healed of his leprosy by Elisha, Jesus 
assumed to be well-established facts. Not a syllable 
ever escaped His lips suggesting that any part of the 
record was legendary or mythical, much less that it was 
a prophetic parable, whose only value was its moral. 
Jesus used the record as if it were true; believing it 
Himself, and expecting everybody else to believe it. 

The acquaintance of Jesus with the Old Testament 
appears also in the structure of His sentences and in 
their contents. There are many unique features. The 
thoughts of Christ were His own ; they were not bor- 
rowed. The speech of Christ was His own; it was 
not based upon current models. But fibered upon 
this originality, in thought and speech, was the Old 
Testament way of looking at things and speaking of 
them. Jesus may be said to have absorbed the Old 
Testament, and so the Old Testament coloring appears 
constantly in His phrases and sentences. This was not 
the result of careful verbal memorizing, but of a com- 
plete mastery of the Old Testament as an organic 
unity. He knew it by heart, and from the heart and 
at the heart. 

3^3 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

As unreservedly as Jesus accepted the truth of the 
Old Testament narrative did He recognize and affirm 
the divine authority of the Old Testament doctrine. 
He did not revise or repeal the Ten Commandments. 
He found them buried beneath a mass of Pharisaic 
traditions. Upon these he poured His angry scorn, 
and rescued for the Decalogue its ancient and spirit- 
ual meaning. The prophets were honored as preach- 
ing a divine message and as doing a divine work; a 
message and a w^ork, not for their day only, but for 
every day and for all men. 

Much is said, at present, of revelation as a gradual 
unfolding of the mind and will of God. The Bible 
is spoken of as a literary evolution or growth. No one 
perceived this more clearly, or stated it more plainly, 
than Jesus Christ. While He claimed divine authority 
for the Old Testament, He affirmed also its incomplete- 
ness. Of some things He declared that Aloses per- 
mitted them because of the hardness of heart of those 
w4th whom He had to deal. Of other things He de- 
clared that they were incomplete as moral precepts, 
and then He announced the broader rule under which 
they must be made to fall. This is notably the case 
in making love our duty to enemies as well as to 
friends. Of His own hearers, Jesus said that they 
had seen and heard what prophets had longed to see 
and hear. They looked upon, and listened to, a greater 
than Solomon or Jonah. John the Baptist was the 
greatest of all the prophetic line, and yet the humblest 
Christian disciple was far in advance of him. Even 
of himself he said that under the guidance of the Holy 
Spirit there would be a great and continuous advance 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

in the knowledge of divine things. Thus to the divine 
authority of the Old Testament he added the continuity 
and the progressiveness of the divine revelation. 

But this continuity and progressiveness of revelation 
were not left hanging in the air. The development had 
its law and goal. It was a bold and startling thing 
for our Lord to say, but He said it again and again — 
that the entire Old Testament, from cover to cover, 
pointed to Him, and was fulfilled in Him. "These 
Scriptures," he exclaimed, ''testify of Me!" Not in 
occasional and isolated passages, but in the whole 
sweep and movement of their narrative and doctrine. 
The day which Abraham saw was His day. The king 
of whom David spoke was none other than Himself. 
No man could understand and believe Moses without 
believing in Himself. And of the guidance of the 
Holy Spirit, He said that its burden and aim would be 
to make Himself understood. Thus He planted Him- 
self at the very center and heart of divine revelation. 
The Old Testament finds its goal in Him. The New 
Testament finds its source in Him. Both find in Him 
their law and meaning. And, therefore, it remains 
forever true that as we come to the knowledge of Jesus 
Christ only through the written word, this knowledge 
passes into a personal experience, which in turn con- 
ducts us into a deeper and sweeter knowledge of the 
Holy Scriptures. His face shines from every page, 
and gives them their unfading beauty and their celes- 
tial charm ! 



315 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

What Jesus Had to Say About the Guidance of 
THE Church by Himself. 

[December i8, 1898.] 

In considering the guidance which Jesus promised 
and pledged to His disciples, the first thing to be 
emphasized is that He spoke of it as an extraordinary 
and supernatural leadership. The influence of good 
and great men does not end with death. Fathers and 
mothers live in their children, and their children's chil- 
dren. Good and evil moral influences are perpetuated 
through generations and centuries. The great poets 
and philosophers, the great architects and artists, the 
great statesmen and military captains, the great philan- 
thropists and theologians become mightier as time 
passes. In many instances these men were despised 
and persecuted, imprisoned and put to death by their 
own generation — as were Socrates, and Paul, and 
Bunyan — while we crown them with unfading laurels. 
Death has often secured a wider and more reverent 
hearing. But the influence has been impersonal in 
form. The thoughts and the deeds of these men have 
been preserved; by means of them the memory has 
retained their ideals and achievements, molding con- 
viction and conduct for many centuries. The actors 
themselves exercise no conscious personal control. 
They do not break through the screen of death. 

Jesus has shared with other great and good men 
this power of impersonal influence by the perpetuation 
in memory, through literary records, of what He did 
and said. The Gospels are the simplest and the short- 
est of books, and yet these brief and artless pamphlets 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

have exerted a more powerful and extended influence 
than all other books combined. Granting all this, it 
still remains true that this does not cover what Jesus 
had to say about His leadership through succeeding 
generations to the end of time, and it does not explain 
the secret of the conquering advance of Christianity. 
For, to say no more, there are two supernatural facts 
which the literary records have carved deep into the 
tablets of Christian confession and conviction — the in- 
carnation and the resurrection. Eliminate these two, 
and the New Testament, grounded in the Gospel story, 
sinks to the level of the ''Arabian Nights" tales. In 
the recognition of Jesus as God manifest in the flesh 
and in His resurrection from the dead the Gospel has 
always found the heart of its message. Its power is 
in these supernatural facts. And with these is joined 
a third supernatural fact, the personal leadership of 
Jesus, by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. 
The disciples were commanded to tarry in Jerusalem 
until the Holy Ghost should come upon them ; and in 
the miracle of Pentecost the church received its peren- 
nial anointing. Such is the plain record. It was not 
unexpected. Peter regarded it as the fulfillment of 
prophecy. Jesus Himself, in His farewell discourses, 
had much to say about another Comforter, whom He 
would send, whose presence should never be with- 
drawn, who would carry on and complete what He, 
in mortal flesh, had begun. The form of leadership 
was to change, but the reality was to remain. It was 
to be supernatural and personal, as His own had been. 
And, though changed in form, it was to remain His 
own. He promised to be with His disciples, by the 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Holy Spirit, to the end of the world. Leadership was 
not surrendered. Just as He had come to do the 
Father's work, so the Spirit was to do His work. Just 
as the Father spoke and wrought in Him, and by Him, 
so He would speak and work in and by the Holy Spirit. 
The leadership was to be supernatural and personal. 
And so it is represented in the historical sketch which 
the Book of Acts supplies, and in the epistles. Jesus 
was not withdrawn from personal leadership ; but by 
His Spirit on earth, and by His intercession in the 
heavens. He is conducting the great moral campaign 
of a world's sanctification and redemption. 

The supernatural personal guidance of Jesus covers 
four things. It is a supernatural personal guidance 
into the knowledge of the way of salvation. To Him 
belongs the leadership in Christian thought. He did 
not cease to instruct His disciples when He took His 
departure from them. He continued to teach them 
by the Holy Spirit; and this teaching was specifically 
confined to the recalling and the understanding of 
what on earth He had said and done. And, as if to 
show that this intellectual guidance was not to be 
confined to such as had enjoyed His personal acquaint- 
ance, Saul of Tarsus was invested with apostolic 
authority. He does not reproduce the discourses and 
the miracles of Christ, with which he was not person- 
ally conversant; but he confined himself to the three 
outstanding historical facts, the Incarnation, the 
Atonement and the Resurrection. History cannot be 
written on the day when it is made. Some time 
must elapse before the facts are seen in their true 
perspective. But its main outlines must be given 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

while the facts are still fresh in the memory. The 
gospels and the epistles conform to this double demand. 
They are not stenographic reports of what Jesus said 
and did, written down at the time of their utterance and 
occurrence. Time enough was permitted to pass to 
allow what had been said and done to reveal its real and 
permanent meaning. And yet the work of recording 
was done within thirty years after Christ's death, while 
the sayings and the deeds were fresh in remembrance. 
This gives to the gospels and the epistles their unique 
authority as Christian literature, composed under the 
guidance of the Holy Spirit under conditions which 
make their trustworthiness and authority impregnable. 
To these historical and doctrinal sources we must ever 
appeal as the final and infallible court of Christian 
arbitration. Still, we must not forget that the super- 
natural personal guidance of Jesus in the knowledge 
of the way of salvation was not limited to the age of 
the apostles. It was never withdrawn ; it is not absent 
now; it never will be wanting. The gift of the Holy 
Spirit, and in it the personal guidance of Jesus, is a 
perpetual gift. He is still the great teacher, and guides 
His church into all truth. Creeds and councils are 
not infallible; nevertheless, in creeds and councils the 
Holy Ghost speaks. There is a certain definite Chris- 
tian confession which has commanded universal accept- 
ance. There is a historic and immutable doctrine, the 
general outlines of which have become increasingly 
clear. There is an incessant winnowing process in 
which the chaff is separated from tlie wheat. The inci- 
dental, the speculative, the scholastic elements drop 
away and are discarded; the real and the substantial 

3T9 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

hold their ground because Jesus, by His Spirit, is 
guiding His church into the truth. 

The guidance of Jesus is a supernatural personal 
guidance into holy character and life. The process of 
sanctification is described as our looking into His face 
until we are transfigured into His likeness. He is 
more than our example and pattern. He is the power 
of God unto salvation. Faith in Him means fellowship 
with Him, and surrender to Him. We dwell in Him, 
and He dwells in us. We dwell in Him by faith ; He 
dwells in us by the Holy Spirit. There is a vital, per- 
sonal intercommunication and exchange. As He was 
made sin for us, so we became the righteousness of 
God to Him. The process is not mechanical and mer- 
cantile ; it falls under the law of vital organic union. 
We are the branches, He is the supporting and nour- 
ishing vine. He imparts to us His own spirit of life. 
It is a supernatural, personal relation, from the very 
beginning, and without interruption. When you open 
the faucet the water rushes out under pressure from the 
unseen reservoir. So, when faith opens the heart, the 
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus flows in for cleansing 
and healing, finding its way into every hidden nook and 
corner. This is the great task of faith, to keep the 
channels open, that Jesus Christ may keep them full. 

Finally, the guidance of Jesus is a supernatural 
personal guidance in the service which He has com- 
manded us to render. That service is nothing less 
than the conversion of the world to Him, by the 
preaching of His gospel. It is an audacious and ar- 
duous task. Sceptics laugh at it. The church itself, 
in large measure, is doubtful and indiflferent. Its ulti- 

320 



w 



w 



n 

X 

t— 1 
z 

o 




THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

mate success, however, is assured, because Christ 
Himself carries the responsibilities and the resources 
of leadership. Already, in the closing years of our 
century, we are witnessing political changes and na- 
tional upheavals, which remind us of the eras of Con- 
stantine and of Luther. We are on the brink of an- 
other great world movement, in which the barriers of 
centuries are giving way. The guns of our navy have 
opened the Philippine Islands to the gospel. These 
islands are the outposts of the Asiatic continent. With 
them in our possession and under our flag, China must 
break its shell and give free entrance to Christianity. 
Crowded on the north by Russia, on the south by Eng- 
land and on the east by Japan and the United States, 
the field must soon be swept by Christian forces. An 
invisible but invincible Captain heads the advancing 
columns, who, whether friendly or hostile to each 
other, are obeying His marching orders. And what 
is true abroad is true at home ; Jesus Christ is leading 
His church to victory. 



What Jesus Had to Say About God. 

[January i, 1899.] 

In our theological seminaries the classification of the 
divine attributes is a very important section of system- 
atic divinity. An attribute is that which we attribute 
to a thing or person ; it is our mental notion of that 
thing or person. Our conceptions of God are various, 
and the mind naturally seeks to formulate them under 
the idea of unity, and to arrange them in a definite 

321 
11 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

and satisfactory order. These attempts have been very 
numerous, and the rival advocates have been very 
strenuous and earnest ; but the debate has not been 
very fruitful of practical results. An exact and ex- 
haustive science of God has not been reached and it 
cannot be reached. The Infinite and the Eternal can- 
not be reduced to a logical diagram. We cannot break 
through our constitutional limitations. We cannot 
grasp the stars ; our arms are too short. We cannot 
lift the ocean from its bed ; our hands are too small. 
We cannot define God ; we are too poor in thought 
and too impotent in speech. We must be content with 
such partial and practical knowledge as comes to us 
in observation, experience and revelation. We may 
know something of God by the patient study of the 
work of His hands. We may enlarge our knowledge 
from the lessons of personal experience and of his- 
tory, which constitute a divine discipline. And we 
may rectify and complete our knowledge from the 
careful study of the Scriptures, and from the teaching 
of Jesus Christ, in whom the fullness of the Godhead 
dwelleth bodily. He who knows Jesus Christ knows 
God, and he only does. 

If we will only follow this simple clue, coming to 
the knowledge of the Father through the Son, the re- 
sult cannot fail to be enriching and gratifying. No 
single utterance of Jesus, not all others combined, gives 
us so practical and pleasing a knowledge of God as 
His word to Philip : "He that hath seen Me hath 
seen the Father." He speaks not merely as the repre- 
sentative of the Father. He speaks with more than 
prophetic authority ; neither Moses nor Isaiah would 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

have ventured to say that. He justifies the amazing 
statement by grounding it upon a vital mutual inher- 
ence of the Father and Himself : ''I am in the Father, 
and the Father in Me." The inherence is mutual and 
unlimited, so that when He speaks, God speaks ; when 
He acts, God acts ; when He suffers, God suffers ; 
when He dies, God dies. What He is God is. This 
makes it certain that God is a conscious personal be- 
ing; not unconscious, distributed, impersonal force, or 
a ''power that makes for righteousness/' This makes 
it certain that moral qualities are the same in God as 
they are in man. They can be, and they have been, 
accurately photographed in a human life. There is 
anger in God which smites the hypocrite, and scourges 
those who convert the house of prayer into a den of 
thieves ; there is compassion in God, which finds vent 
in tears and groans ; there is forgiveness with and in 
God, which does not shrink from the Magdalen's 
touch, which does not crush one whom the synagogue 
had condemned to death, which does not turn away 
from the dying thief. When we dare to make our 
knowledge of Jesus the measure and standard of our 
knowledge of God, because He is God of very God, 
God in the form of man, we plant our feet upon the 
rock which cannot be shaken. 

There are other things, however, which Jesus had 
to say about God which must be taken into account 
for the completion of our knowledge. If we confined 
attention to this only, that what Jesus is, God is, we 
might infer that God had bodily parts, that His pres- 
ence was local, that hunger, thirst and weariness per- 
tained to His essentia] nnd eternal life. So some have 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

maintained. But the correction is supplied by a sec- 
ond great utterance of Jesus in His conversation at 
Jacob's well with the woman of Samaria — ''God is 
Spirit/' The statement is unconditional and absolute. 
The article is wanting. God is not a spirit, but Spirit ; 
nothing else. He has no local habitation. The eye 
cannot see Him. The ear cannot hear Him. The 
hands cannot feel Him. He has no bodily parts. He 
has no material organism. Matter does not cling to 
Him, does not limit Him. So whatever limitations or 
sufferings apply to Jesus as possessing and acting 
through a material body must not be applied to the es- 
sential being of God. The reminder that God is Spirit 
forbids that. The eternal God does not hunger, does 
not thirst, does not sleep, is not weary, is not locall}- 
confined. Matter does not cleave to Him ; it is the 
product of His creative energy. He breaks the bread, 
but does not eat it. He smites the rock, but does not 
drink of the stream ; He giveth sleep, but does not 
slumber. The spiritual qualities in the life of Jesus 
are the qualities by which the eternal being of God 
is to be interpreted and measured. As pure Spirit He 
is personal and self-conscious. He thinks, He feels. 
He wills. As pure Spirit He is self-originating and 
self-sufficient: He is omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, 
absolute. As pure Spirit His presence is illocal ; He 
is omnipresent. As pure Spirit He is immanent in the 
universe; and as pure Spirit He is transcendent in 
His immanence ; omnipresent, but not imprisoned and 
confined. A simple thing is to say, ''God is Spirit;" 
but the phrase holds vast treasures in the knowledge 
of God. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Jesus had more to say. That definition of God 
which describes Him as pure Spirit carries in it the 
danger that we may lose ourselves in speculative con- 
templation. It thrusts us into an open, boundless sea, 
where we may speedily lose ourselves. We sail away 
until all shore lines disappear, and until the waters be- 
come so deep that we can find no grip for our anchors. 
The infinite and the eternal paralyze us. The very 
vastness of our thought makes it empty. We cannot 
lay hold upon it. The glory blinds us. But Jesus 
comes to our rescue. By a third simple utterance He 
teaches us how to crystallize and make practical our 
knowledge of God as pure Spirit. He does this by 
telling us that God is ''Father." That is something we 
can understand, and the most undisciplined thought 
can grasp it. That is something we can understand 
when we sink into mental despair in the attempt to 
grasp God in His eternity, in His absoluteness, in His 
omnipotence, in His omnipresence, in His immanence 
and in His transcendence. Head and heart find rest 
in the thought of God as Father. And when we ana- 
lyze the idea of fatherhood we find that it implies ab- 
solute authority, authority grounded in infinite wis- 
dom, wisdom displayed in universal impartiality and 
immutable justice, justice directed by love. As Father, 
God can be indififerent to none. As Father, God can 
neglect none. As Father, God can be cruel to none. 
As Father, God can be no respecter of persons. There 
must be love in justice, and justice in love. There 
must be long-sufifering in severity, and severity in 
long-suflfering. As Father, the obedience which God 
demands must be reasonable. His law must be holy 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

and good. His commandments cannot be grievous. 
As Father, the discipline to which God subjects us, 
even in its bitterst severity, must be salutary and sav- 
ing. It is our good He seeks. There must be sweet- 
ness in the cup of gall. There must be healing in the 
divine surgery. It cannot be otherwise if God be 
Father. But the Fatherhood cannot make itself effect- 
ive unless in you, and in me, and in us all, it provoke 
the spirit of filial confidence and affection. It may be 
high noon outside, and midnight in a chamber where 
all the windows are closely shuttered. We must fling 
the casements back and let the light come in ! Then 
shall God the Father be our Sun and our Shield! 



What Jesus Had to Say About the Soul of Man. 

[January 8, 1899.] 
There is no ignorance more general, there is no 
carelessness more painful and surprising, there is no 
neglect more widespread than the ignorance, the 
carelessness and the neglect which concerns the hu- 
man soul. Greek and Roman culture placed the coro- 
net upon the body. It trained athletes and soldiers, 
and to gain five consecutive prizes in the Olympian 
games assured universal and immortal fame. The 
man who could jump fifty-five feet outranked philoso- 
phers, statesmen and saints. The laurel wreath was 
the halo of perfection. No wonder that the pleasures 
of sense absorbed attention. To eat, to drink and to 
be merry was all that men cared for. Gluttony, drunk- 
enness and the grossest sensuality were the attendants 
at every feast. Men and women sat down to eat with 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

deliberate intention to make beasts of themselves. 
There was no thought of the soul. Even the hour of 
death was used for dramatic effect; and men invited 
their friends to a banquet, at the close of which they 
would cut their veins and bleed to death, while the 
company quietly looked on. And then they would 
build great mausoleums over their ashes. The soul 
was ignored and neglected; the body was pampered and 
adored. The idea of immortality was openly flouted. 
Cicero pleaded for it on the ground of sentiment; the 
more practical Caesar, speaking officially in the senate, 
denied it. The ancient scepticism survives. Men are 
not sure, even now, whether they are more than ani- 
mated matter, and whether they have any higher des- 
tiny than the cattle whose flesh they eat. We are told 
that habits are ''muscular emotions/' and that the train- 
ing of the body should be the primary aim of educa- 
tion. We have sloughed off some of the coarser habits 
of our ancestry. We are more refined. But the change 
is mainly in appearance. The old idolatry of the body 
holds its ground. Thousands live as if they had no 
souls ; they certainly do not live as if they believed it. 
They are utterly and habitually indifferent to all high 
and holy claims. The days and the nights, including 
the Sundays of the year, are given up to material in- 
terests and enjoyments. For the slightest bodily ail- 
ment the physician is summoned. Whatever will add 
to bodily grace and vigor is assiduously employed. 
Physical tortures are endured for the sake of a more 
pleasing appearance. Every part of the body has its 
specialists, whose services are eagerly sought. But the 
poor soul is left to silence and starvation. There is 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

nothing more important for men to know than that 
they are immortal souls; there is nothing to which 
they are more indifferent. 

The men among whom Jesus lived were carried 
away by the same blind infatuation. They robed them- 
selves in purple and fine linen. They fared sumptu- 
ously every day. It was only bodily defilement which 
was offensive to them. They had their splendidly ap- 
pointed baths and washed their hands many times a 
day, but to the cleansing of their souls they gave no 
heed. Even the religious teachers were whited sepul- 
chers, who made broad their phylacteries and prayed 
in the public squares to attract attention, meanwhile 
devouring widows' houses ; so rotten many of them, 
in their moral life, that they slunk away in shame from 
the woman whose death they demanded, when Jesus 
quietly said, ''He that is without sin among you, let him 
first cast a stone at her.'' Not a hand stirred. In the 
theology of that age there was a doctrine of the soul, 
and of its immortality, and yet the fashionable party 
was that of the Sadducees, who were pronounced 
materialists and who retained their standing in the 
synagogue. The courts of the temple were systemati- 
cally profaned by petty merchants and money changers, 
and when Jesus drove them out, the guardians of the 
temple sharply challenged His right to interference. 
Such things were not only permitted ; they were done 
by official sanction. Of course, the people made short 
work of their religious duties, and there was no heart in 
their piety. It was a moral wilderness in which John 
the Baptist lifted up his voice, amazing the multitudes 
by his strange preaching. He believed in the soul, 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

living in a cave, rough clad, eating locusts and wild 
honey. Men looked and listened and went away, say- 
ing, ''He hath a devil." And when Jesus summoned 
men to be indifferent to food and raiment and chief 
seats at the feasts and emphasized the infinite dignity 
of the soul, His hearers said the same thing. It was 
foolishness in their eyes ; it was rank insanity. The 
young man of whom it is said that Jesus loved him, 
favorably impressed by his appearance and evident 
sincerity, turned sorrowfully away when he was asked 
to strip himself of his wealth and follow Christ empty 
handed. He had great possessions, and much as he 
wanted eternal life he was not prepared to pay the 
price demanded. Even the disciples were astonished 
when Jesus said that it was easier for a camel to go 
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to 
enter into the kingdom of God. The astonishment re- 
veals the low estimate into which the soul had fallen. 
It has been said that the ministry of Christ was a con- 
stant ''proclamation of the doctrine of the soul," its 
reality, its dignity, its responsibility, its immortality. It 
underlies all His teachings. The soul alone, in His 
view, had essential and eternal worth ; compared with 
it, the whole material universe was but a brilliant and 
brittle soap bubble. And that message is needed now. 
But Jesus had a second thing to say about the soul. 
He said that the soul of man was sick, sick unto 
death ; that it was lost, and hotly pursued by beasts of 
prey ; that it was self-exiled from the Father's house, 
living among swine, clothed in rags, eating husks. It 
was a sad picture. He said this of all men. He made 
no exceptions. Was the picture overdrawn? Did 

3-^9 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Jesus knew what He was talking about? Is the soul 
of man blind? Is it smitten with fatal leprosy? So 
He said, but men did not believe Him ; and they do not 
believe Him now. But Jesus spake true. It is true 
of you, and it is true of me. None doeth good ; no, 
not one. There is no difference. All are under sin. 
Every mouth is stopped ; and the whole world is guilty 
before God. So Jesus declared. So Paul taught It is 
the orthodox thing to say ; but there are pulpits where 
this is treated as an exaggeration. At heart, every- 
body is declared to be good. Sin is represented as a 
misfortune, a temporary barnacle, an unfortunate acci- 
dent. We need not worry ourselves about it ; it will 
drop out in time. If we believe what Jesus said, we can- 
not lull ourselves to sleep in this fancied security. We 
are among the breakers ; we are on the brink of Ni- 
agara ; we are in the very heart of the sucking whirl- 
pool. We are in danger of eternal death. The poison 
is in the very fountains. And when men and women 
deal with themselves in fierce and fearless earnestness 
they soon discover that Jesus is right. We are lost ; 
we are blind ; we are sick unto death ; we are guilty 
and condemned before God. Then comes the fierce 
struggle, as it did with Paul : and it ends in despair. 
We are beyond human help. 

But that is not the end. Jesus had a third thing to 
say about the soul of man. God loves it. It bears His 
image. He cannot tear us out of His heart. He can- 
not abandon us. He sends His own Son to seek and 
to save us. Into the world's hospital of death He 
comes, this Great Physician, and His touch restores 
to life. There are no hopeless cases, if they will only 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

call upon Him and upon Him alone. Nicodemus was 
amazed when Jesus told him that every soul must be 
born from above. Moral improvement will not an- 
swer. The ax must be laid at the root of the tree. 
The soul is morally dead, and resurrection alone can 
avail for moral rescue. But this grace, which bringeth 
salvation to every man, has appeared. It is free to all 
who repent and believe. From it none are excluded, 
though it is not, and cannot be, forced upon any soul 
without its free and full consent. The acceptable year 
of the Lord has come. Liberty is proclaimed to the 
captives. There is bread enough and to spare in the 
Father's house; and the doors are wide open to every 
prodigal who comes to himself. Oh, for the grace 
that will make men see! Oh, for the grace that will 
make men hear! Oh, for the grace that will make 
men say, 'T will arise and go to My Father !'' Oh, for 
the broken heart and the swift feet to the Ark of 
Mercy! Oh, for the simple faith which grasps Christ 
in the freeness and the fulness of His redeeming 
mercy and might ! Come ; and come now ! And then, 
never leave Him for a moment ! 



What Jesus Had to Say About the Devil. 

[January 15, 1899.] 

Whether there are any moral intelligences in the 
universe of God superior, equal or inferior to man, 
and what their numbers or missions are, is a question 
either of pure speculation or of pure revelation. Spec- 
ulation speaks without authority upon such a theme. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Science, certainly, provides us with no means of dis- 
covery, and its oracles are dumb. Some have argued, 
from the comparative insignificance of our planet, and 
from the vastness of the material universe, that it is 
absurd to suppose that the earth alone is habitable and 
inhabited. But there is no logic in the argument from 
bulk. It has been said in reply that what we know of 
the constitution of suns and stars makes it absolutely 
certain that their vegetation, their animal and rational 
tenantry must be very different from our own and 
from ourselves. The time may come when a journey 
from the Matterhorn to the moon will be more than 
a clever rhetorical suggestion, but it is certain that if 
such a trip is ever undertaken we shall have to take 
plenty of air with us and provide ourselves with fire- 
proof bodies inside and out. There may be magnifi- 
cent hotels and restaurants in the sun, but we could 
neither sleep in the one nor eat in the other. 

Revelation does answer the question, and answers 
it affirmatively. There is a doctrine of angels in the 
Bible; frequently set forth in the Old Testament, 
wrought into its historical narratives, its prophetic 
writings and its devotional literature. That doctrine 
does not, perhaps, figure so prominently in the New- 
Testament, and it is not elaborated; but the Gospels 
and the Epistles weave it into story, interpretation and 
prophecy. Angels celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ ; 
angels minister to Him in the desert; angels 
strengthen Him in the garden of agony, and guard 
His empty sepulcher; angels attend Him at His final 
advent. There are hosts of them and they are ranked in 
hierarchies, awaiting the word of command. Whether 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

these angels are superior or inferior to the redeemed is 
not so clearly stated. They are vSpoken of as minister- 
ing spirits, whose mission it is to watch over the heirs 
of salvation. They are the guardians of little chil- 
dren. They are servants in the household, of which 
the grace of Christ makes us kings and priests. They 
are filled with an incessant, eager, holy curiosity to 
look into and understand the mystery of human re- 
demption. They break out into joy over every repent- 
ing sinner. And among these angelic hosts there is 
one who by pre-eminence is called in the Old Testa- 
ment the Angel of Jehovah, appearing to Abraham, 
and to Moses, and to Joshua, whom most interpreters 
identify with the Lord Jesus Christ as the Eternal Son 
of God, appearing in a temporary and vanishing an- 
gelic form. 

The Biblical doctrine of angels divides them into 
good angels and evil angels. There are lying spirits 
who enter into men to deceive and torment them. No 
information is given as to their numbers. The impli- 
cation is that they are an insignificant company com- 
pared to those who have maintained their loyalty. 
Among them appears one who is called the devil, 
Satan, the dragon, the great and bitter adversary of 
God. He appears upon the scene in the Garden of 
Eden, and the bottomless pit closes upon him. For 
whether the story of man's fall be regarded as his- 
torical or pictorial, it is perfectly clear that the en- 
trance of sin is described as due to a superhuman or 
extra-human evil agency. It was the devil who 
tempted Adam and Eve, whether he assumed the form 
of a snake or not, whether the first sin was the eating 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

of an apple or not. And this doctrine of a personal 
devil runs through the entire Biblical literature, and 
is everywhere assumed as a stern and awful fact. 

Many have treated this doctrine of a personal devil 
with scant courtesy. They have made it the butt of 
cheap ridicule. They have been content to laugh at it. 
When in more serious mood they have declared that 
the devil is a personification of evil influences, not a 
conscious personal being. He is the creation of sacred 
rhetoric. Now, it is not a matter, perhaps, of very great 
practical importance what our ideas upon this subject 
may be. It certainly is not necessary for a man who 
wants to be saved to believe in a personal devil. All 
he needs to do is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ 
and have as little to do with the devil as possible. It is 
infinitely better to doubt and to deny his existence 
than it is to cultivate his acquaintance for the sake of 
knowing something about him. But when it comes to 
maintaining the serious integrity of the Holy Scrip- 
tures and the final authority of their plain teaching, 
the matter cannot be so lightly treated. It has a very 
important bearing upon what the older divines call the 
''perspicuity of the Scriptures," their adaptability and 
crystalline clearness for the unlearned and uncritical 
reader. The Bible is not a book for scholars ; it is the 
book for the common people; and its plain surface 
meaning must be held to be decisive. The poetry itself 
must be perfectly transparent. The picture must pro- 
claim itself to be a picture. And judged by this rule, 
the doctrine of a personal devil must stand. It refuses 
to vanish into an airy, poetic fancy, the precipitate of 
popular superstition. It is even more serious to deny 

334 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

the personal existence of evil spirits, and of the devil 
as their head, in view of Christ's attitude to this doc- 
trine. He certainly believed that there was a devil. 
The force of this fact can be evaded only in one of 
two ways. We must either say that He knew better, 
or we must say that He did not know better. To say 
that He knew better, but accommodated Himself to 
the superstitious level of His hearers, is to charge Him 
with deliberate dishonesty and deception. Some* have 
preferred to say that Jesus did not know any better, 
and that His beliefs were shaped by His educational 
environment. But this reduces Him to purely human 
proportions and denies to Him even that spiritual in- 
sight which the incarnation must be presumed to have 
given to Him. And if the Man Christ Jesus was also 
the Eternal Son of God, what He had to say about the 
devil must remain unchallenged and authoritative for 
every believer. 

Here comes in the importance of the story of our 
Lord's Temptation. This record, like the record of 
the Fall in Genesis, has been regarded as pictorial, 
mythical or legendary. But in any interpretation of it, 
it is clear that an outward personal agency of evil was 
brought to bear upon Him. The Spirit drove Him into 
the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. He was 
not battling with His own thoughts, though the sphere 
of conflict may have been wholly spiritual, without 
any visible bodily presence and without flight througli 
the air to pinnacle of temple and mountain top. 
There was thrust and parry. Two swords crossed and 
one was l)n)ktMi at the liilt. Tt was a dialogue, not a 
riioiiologue. One might as well deny the real existence 

335 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

of Jesus Christ as to deny that there is a personal devil, 
if the story of the Temptation has any meaning. 

It must be noted, also, that Jesus always speaks of 
Satan as the great adversary with whom He is locked 
in a grapple unto death. It was Satan whom He saw 
fall, as lightning from heaven, suddenly and forever 
overthrown by Himself. It is the devil who takes 
away the word which is sown. It is the devil who 
sows the tares. He is the prince of this world. The 
hour of his arrest Jesus speaks of as not only the hour 
of wicked men, but of the power of darkness. Invisi- 
ble agencies of evil reinforced the hatred of men and 
the treachery of Judas. It was Satan who was sifting 
Peter while Christ repelled the adversary by His inter- 
cession. In the miracles of healing performed by 
Christ, some were treated as the victims of demoniacal 
possession. Devils had entered into them, and He 
drove them out. And in His descriptions of the final 
judgment He speaks of the everlasting fire ''prepared 
for the devil and his angels.'' The evidence is ample 
and unanswerable ; Jesus recognized and affirmed the 
existence of evil spirits, and of the devil as a personal 
being. 

Who is he? Not very much can be said in reply to 
that question. His relation to the entrance of sin into 
human life and history implies that he was already ex- 
istent when man was created. But he has no inde- 
pendent, eternal existence. God made the devil, but 
He did not make him devil. He kept not his first es- 
tate, in which apostasy he was joined by other angels, 
who, with him, are reserved for the judgment of eter- 
nal darkness. He is mighty, but he is not almighty, 

336 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

and he trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon 
his knees. His fiery darts are quenched, his stoutest 
spears are broken, when they strike the shield of faith. 
He has great knowledge, but he is not omniscient. He 
is shrewd, but he is a fool. He is not wise. He is 
blind. He is caught in the nets which he weaves and 
spreads for others. His rage is terrible, but he com- 
passes his own destruction. He has the speed of light- 
ning, but he is not omnipresent. He has a large re- 
tinue, many evil spirits obedient to his bidding, but 
he is vastly outnumbered by the angelic hosts who 
muster at the call of the Son of God. One terrible 
word tells the whole story of what he is. He is a liar. 
He is the father of lies. He was a liar from the begin- 
ning. The truth is not in him. He lies to God. He 
lies to himself. He lies to those who listen to him. 
Hypocrites are his spiritual offspring. That makes 
him weak. That hurries him to defeat and destruc- 
tion. Crowding others into eternal ruin, he falls into 
the bottomless pit himself. 

Falsehood is the unpardonable sin. But he who 
confesses his sins and repents of them with a godly 
sorrow, believing with all the heart on the Lord Jesus 
Christ, shall be eternallv saved! 



What Jesus Had to Say About His Own Death 

AND Resurrection. 

[January 22, 1899.] 

Some have been disposed, following the principles 

of natural evolution, to regard the death of Jesus 

Christ as something for wliich He was not at first pre- 

ii7 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

pared, the possibility of which came to Him as a pain- 
ful surprise, and to which He finally submitted in sul- 
len and reckless defiance, certain that His martyrdom 
would prove to be His coronation. And if we regard 
Jesus as only a man, though the wisest and best of 
men, there is no other possible interpretation as to how 
His mind must have come to regard the death of 
shame inevitable. Men do not undertake great re- 
forms under the conviction of certain death. Their 
enthusiasm makes them oblivious of danger. They 
feel sure that men will listen to their appeals. When 
they are repudiated and persecuted for righteousness 
sake they are amazed and keenly disappointed. And 
only when they have been crowded to the wall do they 
fight without regard to personal consequences. So 
some have read and written the life of Jesus Christ. 
But in doing it they have been compelled to throw the 
historical materials into hopeless confusion. No life 
of Christ can be written without free use of the gos- 
pels. And if Christ began His ministry as a young and 
ardent enthusiast, encouraged at first by His great 
popularity, encountering to His surprise the fierce op- 
position of the religious leaders, provoking their en- 
mity by His untamed and unbridled zeal, until he 
defied them to do their worst, accepting His defeat 
with stern and bitter composure, charging His dis- 
ciples to vindicate Him before the world, the gospels 
are wholly unreliable. They are not written on any 
such plan. Such a sketch cannot be drawn from them 
without wholesale mutilation. They say the very re- 
verse of all this. And so it comes to this, that a re- 
fusal to recognize Christ as more and other than 

338 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

human not only discredits what He frequently and de- 
liberately said of Himself, but robs the gospels of their 
historical value. The process which eliminates the 
Eternal Son of God from their pages eliminates also 
the Son of Mary. 

Assuming, then, as we must, that Jesus has been 
accurately reported and pictured, we must maintain 
that death did not come to Him as a bitter surprise. 
This appears in all His utterances and prayers. In the 
conversion of Nicodemus, when the opposition had not 
yet developed, the cross appeared in full view to His 
mind. He must be lifted up, as Moses lifted up the 
serpent in the wilderness. Only when lifted up could 
He draw all men unto Him. To secure the fruit of 
His ministry, He must die as a grain of wheat dies. 
When Moses and Elias hold converse with Him, the 
theme is not His miracles, not His doctrine, but the 
impending death at Jerusalem. That death was not 
only the hour of human rage and of Satanic fury, but 
the hour for which He had come into the world; an 
hour from which He shrank in His human weakness, 
but toward which His feet rushed with eager swift- 
ness. It was a cup of gall, which He prayed might be 
withheld if it were possible, but which He was eager 
to drink in obedience to the Father's will. It is an old 
tradition that in Joseph's workshop the boy Jesus 
amused Himself by sawing wood into the shape of 
crosses, His very play mastered by the unsuspected 
final tragedy of His life. Thus Overbeck pictures 
Him in art, and elsewhere the young lad appears in 
such a posture, that Joseph and Mary, mute in painful 
astonishment, see His shadow on the wall of the work- 

339 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

shop in the form of a cross. Thus art has caught the 
thought that to die was the one great thing which 
Jesus came to do. It was not an incident in His mis- 
sion ; it was the very heart of it. It was not a surprise 
to Him ; it was the baptism for which He girded Him- 
self at the very beginning. Some have discovered in 
His answer to His mother, when she found Him with 
the doctors in the Temple, an indication that already 
at that time His young mind anticipated the death pre- 
pared for Him ; an anticipation which the temptation 
in the wilderness brought into sharp outline. How- 
ever that may be, it is certain that with this anticipa- 
tion He began His ministry, and continued it to the 
very end. His popularity never for a moment de- 
ceived Him ; He knew that the cheers would give way 
to the curses, and the palms to the scourgings. And 
when Peter attempted to dissuade Him from meekly 
submitting to such treatment, He treated the protest as 
a Satanic suggestion, bidding him afterward to put up 
the sword which he had drawn in His defense. Jesus, 
then, spoke of His death as the great act of His life 
on earth, making it through the institution of the holy 
supper, the outstanding fact of His earthly mission. 

Such being the case, it must be presumed that He 
understood what made His death necessary, and what 
results are secured by it. Upon these two points He 
has spoken with clearness. He proved from Moses 
and the prophets that He ought thus to have suffered. 
His death was the fulfillment of ancient prophecy, and 
prophecy is the disclosure of the eternal purpose of 
God, the articulate expression of His infinite wisdom 
and goodness. Prophecy deals pre-eminently with re- 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

demption, and so Jesus, by making His death morally 
inevitable in the divine forecast, makes it fundamen- 
tally necessary to our salvation. Not less clearly and 
more frequently did Jesus speak of what His death 
would secure for us. He speaks of Himself as the 
Good Shepherd, who gives His life for the defense of 
the flock. He declares that He came to give His life 
a ransom for many, to secure their release from the 
captivity of Satan and from the bondage of sin. And 
He touches the matter more closely still when He 
speaks of His body as broken for us and His blood as 
shed for the remission of sins ; thus making His death 
an atoning sacrifice and the cross the altar of the 
world's redemption. Once more He connects His de- 
parture from the earth with the coming of the Holy 
Spirit, without whom men cannot be regenerated, 
sanctified and glorified. Jesus must die, that the Holy 
Spirit may secure the needed leverage for saving men. 
In all this there is no metaphysics, elaborating a specu- 
lative theory of the atonement, but in these sayings 
Jesus gives us four things of great importance : He 
died to secure our forgiveness ; He died to release us 
from bondage to sin; He died to protect us from our 
foes; He died to secure for us the grace of the Holy 
Spirit. 

Never, however, did Jesus separate the fact of His 
resurrection from the fact of His death. He showed, 
from Moses and the prophets, that Christ ought thus 
to suflfer, that He might enter into His glory, and His 
glory was the seeking and the saving of the lost. As 
Jonah was delivered from death, so would He be de- 
livered. He would rise on the third day. His vision 

341 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

was not bound by cross and sepulcher. Beyond them 
lay the Easter glory, and its radiance made luminous 
the thorny path of suffering and of shame. His death 
rang down the curtain upon the world's despair. His 
resurrection brought life and immortality to light. 
And so, for us, there is no defilement of sin which 
Christ cannot take away, there is no temptation over 
which He cannot give us the victory, there is no suf- 
fering which He cannot change into a song, and the 
dart of death has lost its poisonous sting because Jesus 
died and rose again ! It has been the frequent attempt 
of speculative theology to indicate the specific results 
secured by the incarnation, by the holy obedience, by 
the teaching, by the sufferings and death, and by the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ. But the earthly priest- 
hood of our Lord and Saviour covers all these. They 
constitute, together, the seamless garment of our eter- 
nal salvation. The several strands are so closely and 
firmly woven together that they are inseparable. And 
this earthly priesthood, in life, and death, and resur- 
rection, is carried forward in the heavenly interces- 
sion and dominion. From His mediatorial throne in 
the heavens, and through the agency of His Spirit, the 
Third Person in the adorable Trinity, or Triune God, 
He makes effective in penitent believers the great re- 
deeming act which began with the birth at Bethlehem 
and that ended with the ascension on Olivet! 




34^ 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

What Jesus Had to Say About His Authority as 

King. 

[January 29, 1899.] 

Etymologically, the word ''king" means a man of 
noble birth. The fundamental idea is that of superior- 
ity or pre-eminence. The king is the superior man in 
birth and blood, in stature and physical energy, in 
military genius and political sagacity. The old kings 
were giants, who ruled by force, as are still the chiefs 
of savage tribes, and who founded their states by con- 
quest. With the advance of civilization, making mas- 
tery more and more a matter of intellectual superiority 
and alertness of will, stature and physical energy have 
retreated into the background, and some of the most 
powerful rulers have been men of mean and insignifi- 
cant bodily appearance. Now and then, though not 
often, high moral character has been united with great 
intellectual and executive qualities of leadership, and 
where this has been the case history has starred their 
names, even though they never wore a crown. Such 
men were David and Marcus Aurelius and Charle- 
magne and George Washington and Abraham Lin- 
coln, who, crowned or uncrowned, made illustrious the 
place which they filled. 

Men love leadership. They hate a boss, but they 
love a master. Be the form of government what it 
may, despotic, aristocratic or democratic, leadership is 
indispensable. The sifting process brings the captains 
to the front. And when the right man appears, in 
whom firmness and gentleness, energy and wisdom, 
independence and miselfishness, are united, the ix-opK- 

343 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

are eager to rally to his support, and to invest him 
with the largest powers. They will follow the man 
whom they can trust and who sees his way clear to the 
very goal. Leadership appeals to loyalty and se- 
cures it. 

Jesus Christ is the greatest of all leaders. He is 
the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. The gov- 
ernment is upon His shoulders. Upon His head are 
many crowns. He bids us call no man "master," but He 
makes an exception of Himself. His authority en- 
dures. His words abide. L'^pon all He lays His sov- 
ereign command and bids them follow Him. The 
claim is amazing and audacious, but it has won an 
ever increasing and enthusiastic response. Into pov- 
erty and exile, into dungeons and furnaces of fire, men 
and women have marched wuth eager steps and radi- 
ant faces, because Jesus led the way. And, for one, I 
believe that the fiber of martyrdom is as firm in the 
church to-day as it was when Peter was crucified and 
Paul beheaded. 

Jesus is King. He is the ideal King. He is King 
by appointment of the Father ; He is King by essential 
and eternal dignity; he is King by the majesty and 
might of conquest; He is King by universal acclama- 
tion. 

Jesus Christ is King by the appointment of the 
Father. The Old Testament doctrine of kingship is 
that it is one of the reserved gifts of God. Saul comes 
to it by divine election and prophetic anointing. Saul 
proves unworthy of the trust and David is summoned 
by divine authority. In him, too, the royal office be- 
comes hereditary by the special appointment of God. 

344 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Kingship is not a natural right, but a divine vocation. 
Entering into this Old Testament doctrine of king- 
ship, Jesus constantly speaks of His royal authority, 
in whatever way exercised — in issuing commands, or 
dispensing pardon, or healing the sick, or feeding the 
hungry, or raising the dead, or judging the nations — 
as a delegated authority. He held it by a divine com- 
mission. He speaks only as the Father bids Him, 
and of some things He confessed His ignorance. He 
does only what the Father commands Him to do. 
Obedience to the Father's will is His meat and drink. 
His sole endeavor is to finish the work which the 
Father had given Him to do. His right of final judg- 
ment is a delegated right. Even after the ascension, 
when He affirms His universal lordship, He speaks of 
it as the power or authority which had been given to 
Him. In all these utterances it is Jesus Christ in the 
indivisible, unique totality of His personality who 
speaks. He speaks as the incarnate Son of God, as 
God manifest in the flesh, as the visible representative 
and embodiment of God on earth. As such He occu- 
pied a subordinate place and discharged a definite tem- 
poral mission, just as we do. As born in time and 
growing up to man's estate, dying for our sins, and 
rising again for our justification. He maintained a 
position of relative inferiority to the Father, and tliis 
relative inferiority He freely recognized by tracing 
His kingly authority to the appointment of His 
Father. 

But Jesus declares Himself king also by essential 
and eternal dignity ; so that the apparent economic 
inferiority to the Father vanishes in His essential and 

345 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

eternal equality with the Father. The visible and 
temporal kingship is grounded in eternal royalty. It 
is as lawful heir that He receives His appointment. 
The Father gives Him what is His by inalienable in- 
heritance. No man, He declares, knows the Father 
save the Son, and the Son knows the Father because 
from all eternity the Son shared in the glory of the 
Father. One saying condenses it all. 'T and the Father 
are one." Here, again, it is Jesus Christ in the indi- 
visible, unique totality of His personality who speaks ; 
but the utterance proceeds from the eternal depths of 
His conscious life upon which the temporal form was 
fibered. He who for all eternity existed, and who 
never ceased to exist, in the form of God, added to 
that the form of man. He became incarnate. The in- 
carnation made Him subordinate in authority to the 
Father, but as He did not in becoming incarnate cease 
to exist in the form of God, the equality with the 
Father was not surrendered or lost in the voluntary 
subordination. The incarnation is the luminous con- 
scious center where subordination and equality co- 
alesce. As the Eternal Word became Man, Jesus was 
King by a derived authority, by appointment of the 
Father ; but as the Eternal Word He was King by in- 
herent and eternal right, by sharing in the undivided 
and invisible essence and glory of the Father. We 
have seen that in what Jesus says about His authority 
as a teacher, the divine and the humian elements of His 
personality blend. We have seen that in what Jesus 
says about His death and resurrection the same 
elements blend. And now we see that in what Jesus 
says about His authority as a King there is the same 

346 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

mysterious blending of conscious Godhead and con- 
scious manhood. The strands refuse to be parted. 
The crown upon His human brow, the scepter in His 
human hands, are a crown and a scepter which the 
Father gave Him ; but they are the crown and scepter 
which from everlasting were His conscious possession. 
Jesus Christ claims royal authority by right of con- 
quest. There can be no real kingship without con- 
quest. It need not be the conquest of the sword, 
driving and terrorizing unarmed and weak men into 
submission ; but it must be the conquest of recognized 
superiority. Conquest follows upon superiority, as the 
thunder peal follows the lightning bolt. Be it intel- 
lectual, or industrial, or commercial, or artistic, or po- 
litical superiority — it wins its way and conquers. And 
Jesus Christ is King by a conquest wider and more 
varied than that won by any other historical figure. 
He is King in the realm of intellect, at whose feet 
the loftiest and the lowliest have sat with equal eager- 
ness and joy. There was a time when literature 
sneered at Christ. That day has passed, and culture 
at last speaks with profound respect when the name of 
Jesus is mentioned. His sayings are quoted with a 
reverence granted to no other teacher, and they have 
been infinitely more fruitful of good than all the phi- 
losophy and the poetry of classic antiquity. He is 
King in the realm of moral character. From whatever 
side He is approached He appears as the embodiment 
of perfection. There is no one-sidedness in Him. 
There is in Him an admirable balance of contrasted 
virtues, a marvelous blending of graces and gifts, a 
most wonderful serenity of temper and poise of spirit. 

347 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Upon every field of moral conflict, however hot the 
contest and fierce the onslaught and shrewd the strat- 
egy, He appears, when the smoke has cleared away, ab- 
solute master. He is King by virtue of the absolute 
unselfishness of His devotion. He gave His life for 
sinners. He prayed for His murderers. He laid down 
the principle that mastery comes by service, that he 
who w^ould be greatest should live among men as the 
least, and Himself was the noblest illustration of what 
seems a paradox. And He is King by the greatness of 
His achievements. He mustered no armed hosts. He 
fought no great battles. He founded no empire. And 
yet He was the greatest of captains and swept single 
handed the mightiest of battlefields. For He grappled 
with sin and triumphed by the holiness of His life. 
He grappled with death and triumphed in His resur- 
rection. He grappled with Satan and the powers of 
darkness and delivered the captives from their fierce 
tormentors. Of them all He made an end forever in 
His flesh, and thereby gave life and liberty to a world 
buried in darkness, despair and death. It was an un- 
seen, unregistered battle. There was no flare of trum- 
pets. There was no waving of banners. There was 
no flash of steel. There was no roar of cannon. Not 
a sound smote the air. But when the dawn of that 
first Easter sent its reddening glow over the land it 
heralded a victory for which forty centuries had been 
gathering their forces, and by which the eternal future 
had been rendered gloriously secure. 

The year of jubilee has come ; 
Return, ye ransomed sinners, home ! 

348 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

It remains only to be said that Jesus Christ, who 
is King by appointment of the Father, by essential and 
eternal dignity, and by the majesty and might of moral 
conquest, is also King by spontaneous and universal 
acclamation. In one of his hymns Isaac Watts speaks 
of the grace which saves as ''sweetly forcing" its sub- 
jects. The compulsion is the compulsion of love. It 
is strong and steady, and yet so gentle withal as to 
produce no conscious irritation. It waits until it can 
carry the will with it. It is wonderful, this blending 
of absolute sovereignty in God and of absolute 
freedom in man. The sovereignty is so absolute that 
God is said to create the new heart in us ; and 
the freedom is so absolute that God summons us to 
make our own hearts new. There is the same blend- 
ing of apparent contradictions in the kingship of Jesus 
Christ. No despot ever wielded such power. The 
will of Christ is the only law of His empire. He im- 
poses it. He interprets it. He administers and enforces 
it. He says ''Come,'' and He says "Go," and that ends 
it. It is the incarnation of sheer absolutism. And yet 
it is a rulership than which none can be more repre- 
sentative and democratic. Angels and devils, saints 
and sinners bow the knee to Him. They crown Him 
by universal consent and approval. The one absolute 
will provokes not so much as a whisper of protest in 
any quarter. The secret is a simple one. That abso- 
lute will crystalHzes absolute righteousness ; and abso- 
kite righteousness, while it commands with absolute 
authority, secures the free approval of all moral be- 
ings. No black pebbles are cast into the urn when 
absolute right is the issue. Then, too, He who is 

349 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

King is also He who died to save us and all. We are 
safe in His hands. The world is safe in His hands. 
The pierced palms grasp the scepter of universal do- 
minion, and that wakes the universal and unending 
song. 



What Jesus Had to Say About the Kingdom of 

God. 

[February 5, 1899.] 
It is customary to speak of two advents, the first 
and the second coming of our Lord ; His first advent 
in the flesh for our salvation, and His second advent 
in glory for judgment of the quick and the dead. The 
period between these two advents is regarded as a 
period of preparation, of watching and waiting for the 
return of the absent King. But the anxious watchers 
are to be industrious workers ; and they watch to best 
advantage who work most diligently. We are to wait, 
not only for the Lord, but upon Him. We are to toil 
in His vineyard. We are to preach His gospel to every 
creature. We are to disciple the nations, and in obey- 
ing that command we have the assurance of His per- 
sonal leadership. His withdrawal from the world was 
only apparent. He departed as to the flesh; He re- 
mained, and ever remains, in the power of His Spirit. 
The day of Pentecost was as real an advent as the day 
of His birth, and as the hour of His coming to judg- 
ment will be. So that we should speak of three ad- 
vents: the advent in the flesh for our salvation, the 
advent in the Spirit for the establishment of the king- 
dom of God on earth, and the advent in glory for 

350 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

judgment of the quick and the dead. And the days 
in which we are living are the days of the second ad- 
vent, whose great task is the evangehzation of the 
world, the conversion of the nations. 

If we want to make our view cover the entire pe- 
riod of human history, reaching its goal in the king- 
dom of God, we may regard the pre-Christian cen- 
turies as a preparation for the kingdom, the incarna- 
tion as the inauguration of the kingdom, the dispensa- 
tion of the Holy Spirit as the extension and the con- 
solidation of the kingdom, and the advent in glory as 
its graduation into eternal security and blessedness. 
Fourfold in form, it is one and indivisible in spirit and 
life. It is the rule of God in the hearts of men. It is 
the sovereignty of Jesus Christ over human souls. 

What is the nature of this kingdom? What is the 
principle, what is the power, of this sovereignty? 
What is the aim of the rule of God on earth, and what 
is the power by whch that rule is made effective? 
Jesus Himself has answered these questions, and 
never more clearly than when He least seemed to be 
a king. Standing at the bar of Pilate, the amazed Ro- 
man judge asked Him: ''Art thou a king, then?" 
Calmly came back the answer: ''I am. That is the 
meaning of my birth. It is not a sudden ambition 
which has seized Me. I was born to rule. But My 
kingdom is not of this world. It does not mean a 
palace and a throne and great armies. It is not 
with Caesar that I have any controversy. I came to 
make an end of falsehood. I am a witness unto 
the truth ; and all who are children of the truth 
hear Me and follow Me." So, then, the kingdom of 

351 



THE CHRIST OP NINETEEN CENTURIES 

God is the reign of truth. And in His conversation 
with Nicodemus Jesus pointed out the agency by 
which the truth was to obtain the sovereignty. The 
citizens of the kingdom are they who are born from 
above, born of the Holy Spirit. This completes the 
answer. The kingdom of God is the supremacy of 
truth, secured by the Spirit of promise and power. 
The Sermon on the Mount elaborates that answer and 
the parables illustrate it. Whose is the kingdom of 
heaven? It belongs to the poor in spirit, to such as 
mourn, to the meek, to all who hunger and thirst 
after righteousness, to the merciful, to the pure 
in heart, to the peacemakers, to such as are perse- 
cuted for righteousness' sake. These are the salt 
of the earth; these are the light of the world. He 
sums it all up in the saying that our righteous- 
ness must exceed the righteousness of the Scribes 
and Pharisees if we would enter into the kingdom of 
heaven; and then He proceeds to outline the incisive- 
ness and the spirituality of the law of God. We are 
to share in the moral perfection of God Himself. The 
kingdom is the righteousness of the Eternal, and which 
only the Eternal can impart. The parables confirm 
and illustrate the answer. We need only consider two 
of them, the parables of the sower and of the prodigal 
son. The first teaches us that the kingdom of God 
comes by the sowing of the truth in the hearts of men, 
and its fruitage in their lives. The second teaches us 
that citizenship in the kingdom is the free and unde- 
served gift of God to those who have squandered their 
substance, and who in godly penitence make appeal to 
His mercy. The answer is the same; the kingdom of 

352 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

God IS the sovereignty of truth in the hearts and Hves 
of men, secured by supernatural divine agency. The 
whole matter is admirably summed up by Paul when 
he tells us that the kingdom of God is '^righteousness, 
peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." It is the reign of 
"righteousness,'' a word which means more than 
justice, which is the equivalent of ''salvation,'' weaving 
together truth and mercy ; so that purity is aflame with 
the passion of love, and love is intent upon absolute 
purity. Such a reign of righteousness produces peace 
and girdles the earth with joy. And that is not the 
product of a natural evolution, but of supernatural 
grace ; it is the work of the Holy Ghost. The king- 
dom of God, then, is the sovereignty of the righteous- 
ness, which is God's free gift to men by the agency of 
the Holy Spirit. 

This makes clear a second thing, the method of 
administration. It is rational, for the incorruptible 
seed is the Word of God. And this Word of God is 
also the sword of the Spirit. It is the truth that slays, 
demolishing every citadel of lies ; and it is the truth 
that saves. Lies plunge men into darkness and crowd 
them to ruin ; truth is candlestick and star and sun, 
lighting up our steps to safety and glory. Truth is 
what men need more than aught else; definite doc- 
trine; a simple but rational theology. The method of 
the Divine Kingdom is spiritual. It lays hold upon 
that in human nature which is eternal, which has 
neither beginning nor end, which speaks with infalli- 
ble and universal authority. It makes its appeal to the 
enlightened conscience and makes duty the greatest 
word in our rational speech. And because the method 

353 
12 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

of the kingdom is rational and spiritual, it is intensely 
and exclusively personal. There are no twin births 
in the kingdom of God. Each soul has its solitary 
inauguration and discipline. Repentance is personal. 
Faith is personal. Obedience is personal. Forgive- 
ness is personal. Regeneration is personal. Sanctifi- 
cation is personal. Every man does his own sinning, 
and the guilt of his sin is wholly and only his. Every 
man must do his own repenting, confessing, believ- 
ing, obeying. All these things God w^orks in us. He 
is the originating cause of everything else. But the 
things which God works in we must individually work 
out. We can stimulate each other to penitence and 
faith and good works ; and what we can do for each 
other God is to do much more abundantly. But amid 
all this exterior and interior moral pressure there is a 
point where the individual will stands in the majesty 
of solitary personal action. I speak to a point, not 
of a moment. The idea of time is of no great signifi- 
cance. You may not recall the day or the hour of your 
repentance and surrender to Christ. It may have been 
identical with your first conscious thought and your 
first moral decision, neither of which any of us can 
now locate. But when you did make your first moral 
choice it was you who made it. And if it was the 
soul's choice of Christ, it was you who made it, though 
you made it only because God was in you, urging and 
constraining you to it. There is no fatalism in this, 
because fatalism is compulsion from without, and 
without any regard to personal choice. In the king- 
dom of God we have to do with spiritual and interior 
energies, working along the lines of persuasion and of 

354 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

personal consent; and whatever results in voluntary 
personal action cannot have been produced by compul- 
sion. The will of God does not tear down and crush 
the will of man ; the will of God, which is always for 
salvation, broods over the will of man and wakes the 
dormant or dead will of man into normal life and ac- 
tion. And when the will of man wakes it sees with 
its own eyes and acts by his own personal energy. I 
am not trying to harmonize divine sovereignty and 
human freedom. That has never been done. I do not 
believe that it can be done. I believe each to be abso- 
lute in its own sphere. God could not be more sover- 
eign if man were not free. Man could not be more 
free if there were no God. What I have in mind is 
simply this, that the moral life in every one of us is self- 
moved, even though it be God-moved. It is always in- 
tensely and exclusively personal. The gate into the 
kingdom is straight. It is just wide enough for all of 
us to pass through in single file. When we come to 
this gate, as when we come to the gate of death, hands 
must unclasp. In the sweet but awful solitude of per- 
sonal penitence and faith do we receive our pardon 
and adoption. 

Commensurate with this radical method of admin- 
istration are the results secured by the kingdom of 
God. No change can be more radical than one which 
is rational, spiritual and personal. Such work does 
not need to be done over again. Once begun, the 
leaven, lodged at the very center, leavens all the meal. 
The radical change is revolutionary. It creates a new 
man. It brings all things into subjection. It thrusts 
out all that is foreign to it. It assimilates all that it 

355 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

appropriates. Rational, spiritual, personal regenera- 
tion is the method of the kingdom of God. That 
makes the soul saintly. And a saintly soul will 
make a saintly body, with saintly eyes, and ears, 
and lips, and hands, and feet. Saintly souls will 
create a saintly literature, a saintly art, a saintly in- 
dustry, a saintly commerce, a saintly politics. And 
in this way, by the energy of personal sainthood, the 
whole world will become saintly, until "holiness to the 
Lord'' is engraved on the bells of the horses. In our 
time this sovereign thought of the kingdom of God has 
been seized to emphasize the fact that Christianity is 
the religion of social regeneration, and some urge us to 
substitute external appliances and helps for the per- 
sonal agencies thus far relied upon. The cry is for 
''institutional" churches and sociological methods ; less 
doctrine, more handshaking; less pulpit, more kinder- 
gartens and kitchens. But this is not only to reverse 
the natural order ; it is seriously to misread the method 
of moral life. That is first of all, and always rational, 
spiritual, personal. It has its initiative within, not 
without. When you have said that man is a personal, 
moral being, you have said it all. You add nothing 
when you say that man is also social, for the social is 
simply the mutual interaction of the personal centers, 
and what the social product shall be depends wholly 
upon what the interacting personal centers are. Make 
them all good and your society will be good. Make 
them part good and part bad, and your society will be 
a state of moral conflict. Make them all bad, and your 
society will be utterly corrupt. Of course we want a 
good environment, but to secure it we must have the 

356 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

good deeply lodged in the personal beings who consti- 
tute society and who control social environment. This 
was the method of Jesus ; to make the tree good, in 
the certainty that the fruit would be good. You may 
tie your figs to bramble bushes, but they will not stay 
there long. We cannot, as well wishers of our fellow 
men, lay it too seriously to heart that reformations are 
real and permanent only by the regeneration of indi- 
viduals. The broad, deep base of the ideal social 
structure must be laid in profound personal conviction 
and in corresponding intensely personal moral action. 
When righteousness is thus firmly lodged by the grace 
of God in the very center of personal life, its expand- 
ing energy will sweep over a thousand radiating lines 
into and through the entire sphere of action. This 
will brush away all laws and customs which hinder 
and oppose and will create new ones to take their 
place. Time only is needed to change the face of the 
world; the energy is in each soul which by the Holy 
Ghost has been led to repentance and faith in Jesus 
Christ. 

For the King is the Kingdom; and Jesus is the 
King. He is the Light of the world, the wisdom and 
the power of God unto salvation. He called His per- 
sonal disciples by name, has been doing it ever since, 
and will do so as long as there are men and women to 
be discipled. He has not two methods, one for the 
individual and another for the race. He has but one 
method, the individual and personal, and by that he 
subdues the world. He conquers one soul at a time, 
and so conquers all. Let us follow His steps. 



357 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 
What Jesus Had to Say About Children. 

[February 12, 1899. 

More important and impressive than anything that 
Jesus is recorded to have said to little children, or 
about them, is the fact that He chose to come into the 
world in the helplessness of babyhood. For with Him 
birth was elective. He might have burst upon the 
world as a flaming angel or as a full grown man, in 
an independence and superiority sharply accentuated. 
Instead, he elected, in the very manner of His advent, 
to emphasize His fellowship and equality with us. And 
in doing this He chose to do it on the lowest level of 
humanity. He fixed His eyes upon Bethlehem, not 
upon Rome. Not a palace, but a stable, gave Him 
welcome and sheltered Him. The incarnation was the 
eternal coronation of womanhood and motherhood. It 
has made every cradle a sanctuary, and has imparted 
an imperishable charm to childhood. Christianity, cen- 
tering as it does in Jesus Christ as the Eternal Son of 
God, become flesh, has made it forever impossible to 
make womanhood the badge of subjection and child- 
hood the victim of indifference and cruelty. It has 
made every one of us- eternally debtor to both. The 
world needed that object lesson, and it is needed now. 
For with all the splendor of the ancient civilization two 
things disfigured it and made it brutal at heart; the 
universal contempt for woman and the low estimate of 
childhood. Woman was a slave. Infanticide was no 
crime, and the exposure of new born children, flung 
away to die, was a frequent practice which passed un- 
rebuked. Satanic fury could go no further in destroy- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

ing the very foundation of domestic life. And then, 
when it was most needed, in motherhood and child- 
hood, Jesus Christ entered into human life for its re- 
generation and redemption. No longer can these be 
subjects for coarse or flippant speech with the serious 
and the thoughtful. They are the burning bush in the 
world's wilderness, aflame with the glory of the In- 
carnate Son of God. Every man should see in the face 
of every woman the face of his sister and mother ; and 
every woman should see in her own face, reflected 
from the mirror, the face of her who, in her virginity, 
gave birth to the world's Redeemer. That will give 
to every woman the grace of a quiet, queenly dignity ; 
that will foster in every man a fine and welcome cour- 
tesy; and the combination of the two will make the 
home a heaven on earth. And the child, entering such 
a home, will bring with it the charm and beauty of 
the Son of Mary. There are some for whom the in- 
carnation is only a doctrine of scholastic divinity, in- 
conceivable and absurd ; and, for the most part, we 
connect it with the atonement, as its indispensable con- 
dition, to make it effective for our eternal salvation. 
But it bottoms all life. It is the corner stone of the 
domestic and social structure. In its tribute to woman- 
hood it cuts the root of all sensuality ; and in its tribute 
to childhood it crowns humanity at birth. 

The profound appreciation and intense affection so 
frequently displayed by Jesus for childhood strike 
their roots in His personal choice of birth as the gate 
of entrance into human life for its eternal redemption, 
and in His personal experience of all the normal phases 
of child life. The omniscience which belonged to the 

359 



THE CHRIST OF XIXETEEX CEXTURIES 

Eternal Son of God assumed the form of personal ex- 
perience in the incarnation. He knew Himself as a 
little child, and so understood childhood in immediate 
and exhaustive experience. And for the same reason 
His love for children had in it a strength and depth 
of tenderness which diflferentiated it radically from 
any sentimental attraction. He loved because He val- 
ued. It was not their innocence which appealed to 
Him. It was not merely their docility and frankness 
which won His heart. It was their immortal worth 
which laid its mighty spell upon His spirit. No 
offenses, in His judgment, were graver than the 
oft'enses against childhood. To be drowned in the sea, 
with a millstone hung around the neck, was declared to 
be an adequate punishment for such as despised and dis- 
torted a little child. They were not without guardians 
and avengers. In heaven, Jesus declared, their angels 
always beheld the face of the Father. These had im- 
miediate access into His presence, always welcome, al- 
ways eager to report any wrong done to a little child. 
It is not a sentimental doctrine of guardian angels 
which is taught in that saying. The words take a 
much wider sweep. The Father Himself is the special 
guardian, and the angels are simply His emissaries, 
His informants and the executives of His will. Of 
course, all this is pictorial, for God needs no reporters. 
But, looking through the picture, we learn that the 
world of childhood lies very near the heart of God. In 
that love Jesus shared. To despise a child was to de- 
spise Him, and to receive a child was to receive Him. 
If Christ ever clasped your hand he clasped it when 
you were born, and the baby hand is always between 

360 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

your palm and His. No wonder, then, that Jesus was 
angry when His disciples thrust themselves between 
Him and the little children. No wonder, then, that He 
smiled upon them when they waved their bits of palm 
and shouted their hosannas, even in the temple courts, 
when their elders fell into silence. In them He discov- 
ered the perfection of praise. 

The child is father to the man. There is an unin- 
terrupted physical growth from infancy to maternity. 
The body is stamped at birth. And the soul is stamped 
at birth. Moral life has its unbroken continuity. We 
are not born angels and then lapse into sin. All are 
sinners and none can locate the emergence into con- 
sciousness of guilt. Somehow it is born in and with 
us. In some way it is part of our moral inheritance. 
The fact is clear though the philosophy of it escapes 
us. If the man needs forgiveness, it is because the 
child needs it. If the man needs the grace of adoption, 
it is because the child needs it. Whatever, in the 
range of Christ's redeeming action, past, present or fu- 
ture, the most abandoned sinner needs for his salva- 
tion, that, and all of it, the youngest child needs. If, 
then, we believe, as we most assuredly do, that all who 
die in infancy are saved eternally, we do not, and can- 
not, believe in infant salvation apart from atonement 
and regeneration. Children are not saved because they 
are sinless. Children are saved because Jesus loved 
them and died to save them. This is our great 
contention, and our supreme comfort, that redeeming 
grace awaits the new born babe, shields it, encom- 
passes it, works within it, and upon it, and can be de- 
feated only when the soul tears itself away. I charge 

361 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

you, fathers and mothers, to lay it to heart, that child- 
hood lies wrapped up in the eternal covenant of re- 
demption. Not even sin has so firm a hold upon the 
child as the grace of Jesus Christ. The child is His, 
by purchase as well as by creation, by the sovereign 
claim of redemption as well as by proprietary posses- 
sion. Thus our doctrine of infant salvation is not a 
limitation of the atonement, its restriction to adults, 
but its extension as God's eternal and universal 
method of moral discipline. Under the cradle is the 
pierced palm, and that palm is under every cradle ! 

Of great and permanent significance is that other 
word of Jesus concerning children, in which their use- 
fulness is set forth. I do not mean those repeated say- 
ings, in which Jesus, as a rebuke to pride and hypoc- 
risy, makes a little child the text of his exhortation. I 
mean that oft quoted sentence, ''Of such is the kingdom 
of heaven." We repeat the sweet words over the tiny 
caskets. They are full of comfort. But the comfort 
of them is not the tone to which they were keyed. It 
was the hour of His approaching passion, when His 
face wore an unusual sternness, and when even Peter 
urged Him to be cautious. It was then that certain 
mothers brought their children to Him and the disci- 
ples forced them back. They meant well, but unwit- 
tingly they sought to separate Him from His natural 
allies. There was indignation in His rebuke as He 
uttered that great word, 'Theirs is the kingdom of 
heaven.'' The kingdom of God is not heaven ; it is the 
rule of God on earth. To found the kingdom was the 
mission of Jesus. To make that kingdom universal 
and permanent is our one task under His leadership. 

362 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

And childhood is the hope of that kingdom. From 
its ranks Jesus recruits His army of conquest. It is an 
old and oft repeated story, the story of a scarred and 
crippled veteran who watched a great military proces- 
sion. First came the heroes of the past, in faded and ill- 
fitting uniforms, with banners begrimed with smoke 
and hanging in shreds from the poles ; at sight of which 
the veteran wept as he said, '^'We have been brave!" 
Next came the warriors of the present, with firm and 
confident tread, with serious and strong faces, cov- 
ered with bright new badges and medals ; at sight of 
which the veteran's eyes flashed as he said: ''Thank 
God, we are brave V Last came the boys and young 
men, with eager and dancing step, with fresh and 
flaming banners ; at sight of which the veteran flung 
high his cap as he shouted: ''Thank God, we will 
be brave and the dear fatherland is safe !'' A nation's 
future is in the patriotism of its children. To them 
belongs the guardianship of the flag. Children are the 
hope of the church and of the world. Theirs is the 
kingdom. That is a bugle call of service to the boys 
and the girls. Christ wants them in His army, and 
He wants them before anybody else can get at them. 
There is where they belong. They are out of place 
anywhere else. Gather them in, gather the children 
in! Gather them in your homes, in the Sunday 
schools of the great cities, in all the lands and 
among all the peoples ! If Jesus could lay His hand 
upon them when they were so young and so lit- 
tle that He had to take them from the arms of their 
mothers, you and I may well be eager to win them 
for Him. The world of childhood lies against His 

363 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

heart ; the world of childhood meets the breath of His 
lips; the world of childhood lies under His benedic- 
tion : ''Oh, gather them in, gather the children in !" 



What Jesus Had to Say About Marriage and 

Divorce. 

[February 19, 1899.] 

John, the beloved disciple, whose mother, Salome, 
appears to have been the sister of Mary, the mother 
of Jesus, tells us where and under what circumstances 
Christ performed His first miracle. It was in Cana 
of Galilee, the birthplace and home of Nathaniel, a lit- 
tle hill town about four miles northeast of Nazareth, 
on the way to Tiberias. The occasion was a wedding 
in which Mary, the mother of Jesus, seems to have 
had more than the interest of an ordinary guest, and 
to which Jesus and His disciples had been invited. 
The statement is, that ''Jesus was called'' to the mar- 
riage. He was one of the formally invited guests. 
His disciples were not so called, but appearing with 
Him, and with His permission, they were made wel- 
come for His sake. There must have been more than 
ordinary intimacy between the bride's parents and the 
mother of Jesus, because we find Mary, who always 
appears as of a retiring disposition, concerned about 
the comfort of the guests. In her perplexity she turned 
to her Son, and she evidently understood Him better 
than some critics have done, who have read His reply 
as a sharp repulse. There was something in His tone 
that reassured her ; so that she turned to the servants 

364 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

and whispered : ''Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it." 
And the water was turned into wine. 

The incident evidently made a very profound im- 
pression upon John. For, after describing the jour- 
ney of Jesus to Jerusalem and His return to Galilee, 
by way of Samaria, the evangelist says that Jesus 
came again into Cana of Galilee, adding, 'Svhere he 
made the water wine.'' Nor does John leave us in 
doubt as to how the miracle impressed him. He 
speaks of it as manifesting the glory of Christ, as a 
breaking forth of His eternal and beneficent dignity. 
The miracle revealed and illustrated His mission. He 
came to be helpful to men, to change the water of life 
into wine. But we should not overlook the gracious 
way in which this was done. He came to the rescue 
of His mother and saved her from what would have 
been a very painful experience to her sensitive spirit. 
He came to the rescue of the guests, who praised the 
host not only for the abundance of the wine, but for 
its quality as the best wine of the feast. And in doing 
all this. He placed a wreath upon the brow of the bride 
which has made marriage forever sacred. In the mar- 
riage service of the Protestant Episcopal Church the 
contracting parties and the witnesses are reminded 
that matrimony is an honorable estate, ''instituted of 
God in the time of man's innocency, which holy estate 
Christ indorsed and beautified with His presence and 
first miracle that He wrought in Cana of Galilee." 
Jesus did more than ratify marriage ; He adorned and 
beautified it by His presence and miracle. There is no 
record that during His subsequent ministry He was 
ever present again at a wedding. But to work His 

365 



THE CHRIST OF XL:E7IE:: SEXTURIES 

first miracle at a marriage feast, to which He brought 
His disciples, invests wedlock with a solemn and 
sacred pre-eminence. Groom and bride must have re- 
membered it as long as they lived. The presence of 
the chief magistrate with his cabinet oflBcers would 
grace anv wedding "oarty. They would outrank all 
other gi:es:s. Z.: ...eir glor\- ci.es :e::re the luster 
of Him who lent the charm of His prese:::e and the 
favor :: Kis iadorsement to the i:::rr:?-^r in Cana of 
Galilee. I: was a humble hcffne, ani :i:ey were but a 
humble pair who exchanged their vows and pUghted 
their troth that day. Their names have not been pre- 
served; their history is unknown. That gives to the 
presence of Jesus all the greater meaning and warrants 
us in the conviction tha: His act v. as intended to have 
universal significance. I: ir.secrates and makes Chris- 
tian every altar of weilcclc. He joins the hands. He 
gives the rir.r. He sea is the bond with His benediction. 
We see Hi::: ::::. but He is :::ere : :::e most radiant of 
a'i :i e ^ sis, the most eager :: :ii who oflFer their 
c:::^r:: i :ions. Alas, for suc:\ as do not call Him 
to the marriage. They miss the most gracious pres- 
ence, they fail of the ri:':es: l:".-ry. iNIore precious 
than silver and jewels is :::e ri:: ^ hich He confers. 
It will make the humbi^s: i:: :.r a laradise. Happ3', 
thrice happ}^ are they who call Him to the marriage; 
for if they call Him He will come, and He will come 
as He did to Cana in Galilee, to change the water into 
wine and to manifest His glory. 

In what our Lord said about marriage He empha- 
sized first of a!! its sanctit>\ C::e reef only read at- 
tentively w::a: He regarded the Seve::::i Ccmimand- 

366 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

ment as forbidding, to discover that He looked upon 
wedlock as fibered upon the purest love. Lust, Jesus 
declared, is adultery. It is hateful and wicked after 
marriage, in marriage and before marriage. Between 
it and the love which constitutes true wedlock there is 
eternal and uncompromising warfare. Where love 
rules lust cannot come ; and where lust rules love can- 
not enter. The doctrine is radical and revolutionary. 
It cuts the root of all sensuality and crowns marriage 
with the white flame of holy affection. And because 
marriage is sacred the bond is indissoluble. Both par- 
ties leave their kindred and become one flesh, so that 
any separation of whatever nature is mutilation, as if 
one living body should be cut in two. This Jesus said 
was the Divine intention from the beginning and for- 
ever remains the law ; for what God joins together no 
man may put asunder. 

It is at this point that Jesus introduces His doc- 
trine of divorce, in which He revises the Mosaic law, 
and runs counter to the universal custom of His time. 
Even His disciples were amazed at His teaching, and 
frankly said to Him that, under His interpretation of 
what marriage meant, the unmarried state was the 
best. His doctrine, as reported by Luke, in the 
eighteenth verse of the sixteenth chapter of His gos- 
pel, amounts to this : ''Once married, married for life." 
And upon that statement of the case, the Roman Cath- 
olic Church has always refused to sanction marriage 
between parties one of whom has been divorced. 
Marriage, that church maintains, can be dissolved only 
by death. No divorce is recognized as valid. There 
may be dissolution by special dispensation of the 

367 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Pope ; but this, it must be remembered, is regarded as 
the exercise of authority truly and properly divine. 
As the order of nature, both in the State and the 
church, the marriage tie cannot be loosed ; it must hold 
until death parts. And Rome cannot be gainsaid, so 
long as we read only Luke. When, however, we turn 
to the first and earlier gospel, we discover that Jesus 
said more than Luke reports Him to have said. Turn- 
ing to the tenth verse of the nineteenth chapter of 
]\Iatthew's gospel, we find that Jesus added an im- 
portant qualification. He recognized adultery as good 
and sufficient ground for absolute divorce, with the 
right of marriage by the innocent party ; but He recog- 
nized no other ground for divorce. Through adultery 
the guilty party commits moral suicide, and that moral 
death cuts the marriage bond. Even here it is not as- 
serted that divorce must follow upon adultery. The 
way is open for that, though other considerations may 
come in to make it unwise and even cruel. Divorce is 
one of the reserved rights of the innocent party in 
such a case, a right to be cautiously exercised. The 
surgery may be necessary and obligatory ; but even 
then it will be surgery, leaving a wound which can 
never be healed. So, too, is remarriage by the inno- 
cent party treated as permissible, but it is not recom- 
mended. The undertone of the original law makes it- 
self heard in one solitary exception : ''Once married, 
married for life." The great dramatist reminds us that 
it is better to 

''Bear the ills we have 
Than to fly to others that we know not of." 

368 



- ^ 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

It certainly would seem to be the dictate of wis- 
dom, where marriage has proved to be so dishonoring 
and dishonorable an estate that divorce offers the only 
release that another marriage calls for the greatest de- 
liberation and caution. When it comes to such di- 
vorces as are freely given in many States upon the 
sHghtest pretext, often by mutual consent, and by per- 
jured testimony, they are without Christian sanction, 
and should be frowned upon by all who place any 
value upon a pure home life. The doctrine of Jesus 
seemed a harsh one to His own disciples, and it is so 
regarded now. Then, as now, marriages were entered 
into hastily, and the haste was encouraged by the ease 
with which the divorce could be secured. Make di- 
vorce difficult, and marriage will gain in dignity. 
Make divorce well nigh impossible, let it come under 
the universal social ban, and marriage will cease to be 
hasty and ill-considered. When marriage is regarded 
as a covenant, and not as a secular or civil compact, 
the creature of fickle and changing legislation, as a 
covenant in which two become one, to live a common 
life and share a common fortune, we shall hear less of 
unhappy homes. The time to avert such a disaster is 
the time before the solemn vows are exchanged. After 
that it should be ''for better, for worse, for richer, for 
poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part ; 
according to God's holy ordinance ; and thereto I 
plight thee my troth." 

There is one other saying of Jesus about marriage 
which commands attention. It bears upon the rela- 
tion of marriage to the celestial and eternal life. 
Of that life He plainly says that marriage forms 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

no part, but that the redeemed shall be as the angels 
of God. Marriage is the holy ordinance of God upon 
earth ; it is not perpetuated in heaven. That does not 
mean, however, that the holy affections which organize 
the home, and which are cultivated in it, are to be ex- 
terminated, or to suffer eclipse. There is an eternal 
element in all that is transient; and when the husk 
vanishes or decays, the life is not extinguished. It 
takes on a nobler form, as does the oak which has its 
birth in the death of the acorn. Marriage is the cradle 
of the finest, sweetest, holiest affection. It is a school 
of gentlest culture and of gracious forbearance. The 
years do not strip it of its charms. Poverty, sickness, 
age — these do not loose the silken bonds. And death 
cannot bury the holy friendship thus born and nur- 
tured. They will outgrow their earthly form and im- 
perfection, but all that was true and good and noble 
in them will blossom into brighter beauty in the 
realms where they neither marry nor are given in 
marriage. It does not mean oblivion. They who have 
shared a common life on earth, mutually helpful and 
gladdening — ^husbands and wives, parents and chil- 
dren, brothers and sisters — cannot help entering into 
a deeper and larger and sweeter celestial fellowship, 
though the earthly relationship be not continued or re- 
sumed. We shall know each other. We shall love 
each other. If in the hour of holy wedlock we have 
laid deep and strong the foundations of mutual affec- 
tion, confidence and fellowship, storm and tempest will 
not shake the house which we build upon them, and 
when death parts the hands, hearts will still be one, 
and hearts will remain one forever ! In many a garret 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

you will find an empty cradle. It is no longer needed. 
It was once the center of all that was sweet and tender. 
One by one the children were rocked in it. But the 
boys and girls are men and women now. The cradle 
is discarded, but its former occupants remain, the 
strength and beauty of a larger home. Marriage is 
the cradle of holiest love. We shall outgrow it and 
leave it behind, but the affections which were rocked 
in it shall be our strength and beauty forever ! 



What Jesus Had to Say About Nature. 

[February 26, 3899.] 

Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in the hill country 
of Judea. The greater part of His life, however, was 
spent in Northern GaUlee. Nazareth was the city of 
His childhood and youth and early manhood ; the city, 
too, where Mary and Joseph had their residence be- 
fore He was born. The preaching of John the Baptist 
brought Jesus down to the Jordan on the borders of 
Judea, and after a brief sojourn in the neighborhood 
He returned to Galilee, making Capernaum, a sea 
town on the shores of the Lake of Galilee, the head- 
quarters of his early ministry. Nazareth was a hill 
town situated inland about twenty-five miles south- 
west from Capernaum, nearly midway between the 
Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, twenty miles 
from the former and thirty miles from the lat- 
ter. Mount Tabor, with an elevation of over two 
thousand feet above the sea level, was only five 
miles from Nazareth eastward on the road to Tiberias, 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

an easy and much frequented walk. From its summit, 
crowned with a Roman fort, there was an extended 
view. The Mediterranean and the Sea of GaHlee 
could easily be seen. Toward the south. Mount Gil- 
boa was outlined against the sky, and on the west rose 
the ridge of Carmel, nearly twenty-three hundred feet 
above the sea level. Sixty miles away toward the 
north could be seen the mountains of Lebanon, con- 
tinued westward and southward in the ranges of Her- 
mon and Bashan, varying in elevation from six to ten 
thousand feet above the sea level, snow crowned and 
snow mantled the whole year round. From the sum- 
mit of Tabor, too, the great plain of Esdraelon 
stretched westward, gorgeous in summer with its car- 
pet of flowers. Such was the natural scenery in which 
Jesus grew up. The country was the residence of a 
busy, energetic population. Cities and towns were nu- 
merous and prosperous. The waters of the inland lake 
abounded in fish; and the fisherman's craft, then as 
now, produced a race of men inured to hardness ; ob- 
servant, alert, brave, energetic, independent. Toward 
them Jesus seems naturally to have been drawn, 
though Himself growing up in a carpenter's home. 
He called His first disciples from their nets while He 
was walking by the sea. The phrase occurs repeat- 
edly, as if between Jesus and the sea there was some 
subtle attraction. He could sleep upon its bosom when 
the waves threatened to engulf the boat, and when the 
oarsmen had given up the unequal contest. At their 
cry He arose, and when the waters heard His voice 
they settled into calm. At another time He came to 
His endangered disciples walking upon the wild 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

waters as if they had been a pavement of granite. 
From a boat He preached to a multitude who hned 
the shore. Even after His resurrection we find Him 
again walking by the sea, as He had so often done, di- 
recting the movement of His disciples and conversing 
with them. This love for the sea seems to have been 
associated with an equally strong love for the moun- 
tains. Frequently He withdrew to a mountain to 
spend the night in prayer. In the neighborhood of Ca- 
pernaum there is a hill which is known as the Mount 
of Beatitudes, and upon one of the slopes of snowy 
Hermon it is supposed that Jesus was transfigured. 

It is in such incidental strokes of description that 
we discover the knowledge and love of Jesus for nat- 
ural scenery. It appears as wrought into the fiber of 
His personal habits, and it colors all His discourses. 
He speaks, as it were, in the dialect of Nature. The 
wolves He had seen prowling for their prey; the ser- 
pents and vipers, noiseless in movement, vicious in 
temper. With the habits of foxes and birds He was 
acquainted. The doves and the sparrows attracted His 
attention. For Him the lilies outranked in beauty the 
splendor of royal courts. The grass and the trees, 
the sprouting grain and the waving harvest arrested 
His eyes. The vines, bleeding from their early and 
severe pruning, green in their first sprouting, bending 
low with their heavy white and purple burden, seem to 
have been the objects of special favorite observation 
from which He drew many important and impressive 
lessons. The sheep He loved, and knew the shep- 
herd's way with them, and love for them. He had 
studied the sky, with its glories of sunrise and sunset. 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

He was observant of wind and lightning, of heavy 
rains and rushing floods. He never discoursed upon 
these things. There are no studied and elaborate 
descriptions of them, as is the habit of novelists 
and poets. The fine and delicate threads are woven 
into the heavier gold of His teaching. That is always 
solemn and searching, but the dash of beauty is in and 
through it all. And so we are told that it was His 
habit to teach by parable, by appeal to visible things 
with which all were familiar. And this use of Nature 
by way of illustrating and enforcing His teaching was 
so simple and natural as to imply a deep seated and 
ardent love for what earth and sea and air contained. 

The fact that Jesus taught by parables reveals an 
attitude and estimate of Nature entitled to serious at- 
tention. The attraction which Nature had for Him 
was not limited to the beauty in w^hich it was robed. 
It lay in the discernment that its forms and processes 
conveyed lessons of the utmost importance. If the 
floods sweep away the house which is built upon the 
sand, so must they come to shame and ruin who know 
the truth but do not obey it. If God cares for spar- 
rows and flowers. He will surely not neglect men. If 
the heralds of a coming storm can be read in the sky, 
there must be a rational order in all that takes place. 
If the branches of the vine are made more fruitful by 
severe pruning, so are souls made richer by the dis- 
cipline of suffering. If the good seed is scorched by 
the heat when it falls upon stony ground, and is 
choked when it is crowded and overshadowed by 
thorns, so does the word of truth result in no perma- 
nent benefit w^here it is superficially retained, or where 

374 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

it is blanketed by the cares of the world. It must fall 
into an honest and good heart, where it is received, 
understood and retained. If a little leaven can leaven 
a great mass of meal, so can a fixed and ultimate 
choice change the whole character and life; and one 
holy life can save the world. If a mustard seed can 
grow into a tree, so can an insignificant beginning ul- 
timate in universal conquest. If a grain of wheat 
must die before it has its resurrection in abundant 
fruitage, so must Christ die before He can enter into 
His glory. The undertone is always the same; Na- 
ture is a divine and authoritative teacher. Professor 
Drummond was right in his main idea, when he wrote 
his book, so much praised and so severely criticised, 
on ''Natural Law in the Spiritual World." 

The order of Nature and of Spirit is one. The 
only difference between the two is one of method. 
The order of Nature operates under the law of neces- 
sity ; the order of Spirit operates under the law of per- 
sonal freedom. Aside from that fundamental differ- 
ence, the realm of Nature is a symbol of the realm of 
Spirit. There is not only law or order in both, but 
spiritual and eternal truth is suggested and shadowed 
forth in the processes and results of Nature. From the 
very beginning, and by eternal design, as Paul de- 
clares, the invisible things of God, even His eternal 
power and Godhead, are clearly seen and understood 
by the things that are made. The revelation is not 
complete, but it is true and reliable, as far as it goes ; 
and it goes very far. The heavens declare the glory 
of God. Day unto day uttereth speech ; night unto 
night showeth knowledge. Upon this view of Nature 

375 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Jesus took His stand and made its beauty luminous in 
the garment of truth, so that to find 

"Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones and good in everything/' 

is not the quaint conceit of the great dramatist, but 
the rational estimate and use of the great world in 
which we live. Jesus did that and opened for us a 
wide door into fields which microscope and telescope 
are continually extending, and of which books give us 
only a broken outline. 

One other fact in the attitude of Jesus toward Na- 
ture remains to be spoken of. It is his conscious su- 
periority to and mastery over Nature. He obeys its 
laws and adjusts Himself to its order; but He also 
transcends that order without destroying it. He walks 
upon the waters, when Peter sinks. He makes the 
winds and the sea obey Him. He feeds thousands 
with a few loaves and fishes. He heals the sick and 
restores the dead to life. And He does all this with- 
out giving the slightest shock to the natural order. In 
all His miracles He displays the knowledge and 
power of a master. The complete and sovereign mas- 
tery which Jesus displays in what we call His mira- 
cles has its lower forms in plants and animals and 
men. There is in a living seed a mastery over the 
elements of Nature which no mechanical appliances 
and no chemical combinations have been able to repro- 
duce. It is a unique mastery, converting soil and air 
and sunshine into vegetable fiber, into grasses, flowers, 
fruits and mighty forests, a mastery which gives to 
yielding grass blade and tiny stalk an energy which 

376 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

counteracts and conquers the tremendous force of 
gravity. And yet the miracle creates no disturbance in 
the order of Nature. To animals belongs a still higher 
mastery ; and the highest mastery belongs to man. 
But whether the mastery move within narrow or ex- 
tended lines, it produces no jar in the universal order. 
And if we interpret the miracles of Jesus by the sov- 
ereign mastery which He claims and which is ascribed 
to Him, they will cease to disturb us. He, by whom 
all things were made, and in whom they find their sup- 
port, has power to open the graves and summon the 
dead to come forth, without damage to the order of 
the universe. Miracle is the sign and evidence of mas- 
tery. In his later years it was the conceit of Ernest 
Renan, who reduced the life of Jesus to a French ro- 
mance, substituting rhapsody for sober scholarship, 
ruthlessly eliminating the supernatural from the record, 
that the processes of evolution would ultimate in the 
birth of a supreme genius, mastering every secret of 
Nature ; whose practical omniscience would invest 
Him with omnipotence; and who would check the ad- 
vance of death, calling out of their graves at the same 
time all who had fallen into the deep and dark abyss. 
For such a master the soul cries out. And we believe 
that He has appeared in the person of the Incarnate 
Son of God, in Jesus Christ our Lord, whom heaven 
and earth obey ; who laid His pierced palms upon the 
massive gates of death, wrenching them from their 
ancient supports and flooding with celestial radiance 
the sepulchers of earth. Lover of Nature is He ; in- 
terpreter of Nature is He ; and master of Nature is 
He, crowning it with the glory of His redemption. 

377 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

What Jesus Had to Say About God's Care of His 
Creatures. 

[March 5, 1899.] 

What Jesus had to say about God's care of His 
creatures may be summed up under three general 
heads. That care He declared to be personal, particu- 
lar and paternal. God's providential care of His crea- 
tures, animate and inanimate, Jesus declared to be the 
care of personal superintendence and direction. It is 
God who feeds the birds of the air. It is God who 
clothes the lilies of the field. It is God who sends 
sunshine and rain. God's personal activity is always 
thrust to the front. Government by law is recognized, 
but government by law is not represented as elim- 
inating or making needless God's personal and contin- 
uous superintendence and action. Few words have 
been more loosely used than this word law. It has 
come to be invested with a sort of independent energy, 
as if things once set going would keep on forever. 
Thus the deist conceived of the universe of matter 
and of mind as a vast, complicated machine, with 
wheels perfectly fitted, and with energy stored away, 
and then left to run its course until the energy had 
been used up, or the wheels had worn away. The deist 
attributes creation to God; but he denies rulership to 
Him. In fact, he regards rulership as militating 
against the Creator's perfection. It would seem, how- 
ever, that a mechanism so constructed that its maker 
is powerless to use and control it is a doubtful tribute 
to His greatness. 

The conception of the universe as an organism, 

378 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

however, is seriously discredited by science. Only in 
a very loose way can it be said that the universe is 
an organism, as is a plant, or a tree, or the human 
body. Life divides the universe into two great sec- 
tions ; between which, so far, no link has been discov- 
ered. And in the section where life is the common at- 
tribute, the emergence in man of self-consciousness 
and self-direction, of reason and will, makes another 
division into the non-personal and the personal ; be- 
tween which, so far, no link has been discovered. A 
universe so constituted cannot be called an organism 
in any clear and proper use of the word. Nor will the 
word evolution help us much. The evolution of a 
plant is one thing ; the evolution of a planet is another 
thing; the evolution of personal character is still an- 
other thing. They are not identical, either in the 
shaping energy or in the processes of unfolding. 
Matter, life and personality are three distinct grades 
or spheres, which cannot be traced to a common ma- 
terial source. They are interlaced, and form a unity ; 
but the unity is metaphysical or transcendental. 

Some find the more adequate conception in what is 
called ''Monism," the presence and operation of a single 
energy in every department of the universe, man in- 
cluded ; though some exclude man from its operation, 
conceding to him, and to him only, a true independ- 
ence of personal life. All other things have only a 
seeming reality. Their true and only reality is the en- 
ergy of God's personal will. Law is defined as a 
method of God's action ; so that every grain of sand, 
every drop of rain, every flake of snow, every crystal 
of ice, every ray of light, every grass blade, leaf and 

379 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

flower, is the product of God's creative energy. All 
this God does in an orderly way, and the discovery of 
this order gives us the knowledge of what we call the 
laws of Nature. These are simply the way in which 
He works. Only in the will of man is there a real cen- 
ter of created personal action. God works and man 
v/orks ; nothing else does. This is the doctrine of 
Lotze, but it is much older. Jonathan Edwards defined 
preservation as continuous creation. This may easily 
run into pantheism, which identifies God and the uni- 
verse, but the monist earnestly repudiates the charge 
of pantheism. I think he goes too far when he says 
that the only action of Nature is the action of God 
and of man ; but in his doctrine that without the per- 
sonal action of God stars do not swing, and suns do 
not shine, and rains do not fall, and harvests do not 
ripen, he is in full agreement with Jesus Christ, who 
interpreted God's care of His creatures as the care of 
personal superintendence and support. 

This personal care of God for His creatures Jesus 
declared to be particular. Two sparrows in His day 
were sold for an assarium, a copper coin, variously 
estimated as equivalent to one or one and a half cents 
of our money. Yet not one such sparrow ran its 
short life, Jesus said, without God's knowledge and 
notice. On each sparrow's birth and death God keeps 
a record ; and while they live God provides the needed 
food. Nothing is finer and more exquisite than the 
garments in which the flowers of the field are robed. 
The colors are wrought into the texture. The weav- 
ing and the beautifying are simultaneous and insep- 
arable processes. The spindles and the pencils are out 

380 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

of sight and from out of the common soil springs the 
graceful stalk, with the crown of beauty tipping it. 
Thousands of them are trodden under foot of beasts 
and men. Yet upon each of them Jesus said God lav- 
ishes His personal care. He clothes the lilies of the 
field. It is a still more amazing statement which Jesus 
makes when He says that ''the very hairs of your head 
are all numbered" — the perfect participle, literally ''have 
all been numbered/' so that not one of them can drop 
out unnoticed. That is something which no mother 
has ever tried to do, label every hair on the baby's 
head with its appropriate number, so as to keep track 
of its history. But that is what Jesus represents God 
as doing. It is not merely an act of omniscience which 
He affirms. He does not content Himself with saying 
that God knows how many are the hairs of your head. 
He says that the hairs have been numbered, so that 
one cannot be mistaken for another, so that the record 
of each is kept with scrupulous exactness. The state- 
ment suggests a minuteness in the divine care which is 
at once amazing and inspiring. The imagination is 
baffled, but the heart is made glad. Great and small 
do not figure in the divine enrollment. Nothing is 
overlooked. The infinite and the infinitesimal equally 
command the divine attention. In fact, science has 
been unable as yet to penetrate into the secret chambers 
where the process of world building began, and where 
it is constantly carried on. A grain of sand, a drop 
of water, a living cell has a long history behind it. 
They do not represent the initial materials. These 
escape our grasp and vision, so small and tenuous are 
they. And upon such things God lavishes His wis- 

381 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

dom and might. Mountain ranges may be broken in 
outline ; coast lines may be irregular and shifting ; 
clouds are proverbial for their fantastic changes; the 
shape of the planet in its elevations and depressions 
defies picturing; but when you come to examine the 
tiny particles the most absolute uniformity and regu- 
larity are disclosed. Not upon the broad shoulders 
of a giant, as in the Greek fable, but upon these tiny 
particles, God lays the burden of the planet and of the 
universe, and by the unbroken rhythm of their move- 
ment He secures that universal order which is the 
music of the spheres. Nothing is beyond the range of 
God's personal care. It is a very sweet assurance. 
We are so apt to think of God as our refuge in the 
great crises of life only, so that we have coined the 
proverb, ''Man's extremity is God's opportunity," as if 
God came to our rescue only when our resources have 
been exhausted. But His saving grace is always near, 
and His sheltering wings always cover us. His provi- 
dence is in the little things which fret us, things so in- 
significant that we blush when they are hinted 
at in the presence of a stranger; and it is in the eit^ 
durance of these petty annoyances and trials that God 
would have us lay hold upon Him. 

The sweetest thing remains to be said. It is the 
radiant crown upon the brow of the doctrine of Jesus 
concerning God's care of His creatures. He declares 
that this care is not only personal and particular, but 
that it is also paternal. When He speaks of sunshine 
and rain He says, ''Your Father sends the rain and 
makes the sun to shine." When he speaks of the falling 
sparrow, He says : "Your Father knows and notices it." 

382 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

When He points to the birds and the flowers, He 
says, "^Your Father feeds them and clothes them." It 
is a Father's care which God exercises. Note, how- 
ever, that this paternal quality in God's care of His 
creatures is specific, not general. Jesus says, ''Your 
Father/' not 'Their Father." God is not Father to 
birds and lilies, to clouds and stars. He is Father 
only to human souls. The house is not the home. The 
home is constituted by parents and children. For them 
the house with all its appointments and in all its man- 
agement exists. The universe is spoken of by Jesus 
as the house of God consisting of many mansions ; and 
in this house there is a household over which He pre- 
sides as Father. Sons and daughters are we by the 
free grace of an undeserved adoption in Jesus Christ, 
for whose good all things work together by an eternal 
and blessed predestination. That man is the final 
cause of creation has often been labeled as the height 
of absurdity — so insignificant is he. But there is no 
logic in the argument from bulk. One infant soul out- 
weighs all the stars. 

The first question in the Heidelberg Catechism is 
this : "What is thy only comfort in life and in death ?" 
And the answer is as sweet as it is simple, "That I, 
with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not 
my own, but belong to my faithful Saviour, Jesus 
Christ, who, with His precious blood has fully satis- 
fied for all my sins and redeemed me from all the power 
of the devil ; and so preserves me that without the will 
of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my 
head ; yea, that all things must work together for my 
salvation." 

383 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

What Jesus Had to Say About Prayer. 
[March 12, 1899.] 

The importance which Jesus attached to prayer ap- 
pears in the prominence given to it in what is known 
as the Sermon on the Mount. Sixteen verses are de- 
voted to its exposition in this discourse. Two of the 
parables, the parable of the Unjust Judge and the 
parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, deal ex- 
clusively with prayer. Even more impressive is the 
fact that His own life and ministry move in an at- 
mosphere of frequent, protracted, earnest, agonizing 
prayer. The people were astonished at His teaching, 
because His words were weighted with an unusual 
authority and grace. The disciples, who witnessed 
His private life, listened in awe when they heard Him 
pray, and asked Him to impart the secret to them. 
And when He tore Himself away from them, He went 
into solitude, not to sleep, but to spend the night in 
prayer. He prayed at His baptism ; and, as He prayed, 
the heavens opened. He prayed on the Mount of 
Transfiguration ; and, as He prayed, the fashion of 
His countenance was altered, and His raiment became 
white and dazzling. He prayed at the grave of Laz- 
arus, and Death released his captive. He prayed in 
the Garden of Agony, and so mighty was the spiritual 
wrestle that the bloody perspiration beaded His brow. 
He prayed in the upper chamiber, w^here He had eaten 
the Passover for the last time, and had instituted the 
Holy Supper, and that prayer still hushes us into a 
holy silence, and fills us with a strange, deep peace. 
The seventeenth chapter of John's Gospel is the Holy 

384 








Tablet to the Memory of Dr. Behrends 
IN Ckntrat. Con(;re(;ationai. Church. 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

of Holies, where the veil between earth and heaven is 
held wide apart. It gives us a glimpse of the eternal 
and ever availing intercession of our Lord. And He 
prayed on the cross, for others and for Himself. 

Two things never appear in the prayers of Jesus, 
though in the prayer which He taught His disciples, 
as indicating the spirit and the scope of their petitions, 
they have a place. In the first place, Jesus never 
prayed for the forgiveness of sins. Confession of 
wrong and penitence are wholly wanting. There is 
no hint of such things even in the great prayer which 
preceded His arrest and crucifixion. The omission is 
of startling significance. It can only mean that the 
consciousness of personal sin was something of which 
He was absolutely ignorant, so that not even impending 
death could awaken it. He prayed as a sinless and 
holy soul prays ; and this makes it clear that prayer is 
more than a means of grace, helpful to sinful men and 
women, but needless in a state of moral perfection. 
Jesus did not pray less, but more than His disciples. 
Nor did He cease to pray when He rose from the dead 
and ascended into heaven. He declared that He would 
continue to pray, and that His prayers would be an- 
swered. Whatever of mystery there may be connected 
with this heavenly intercession, the simple fact re- 
mains that He is represented as our Advocate before 
the Father, pleading on our behalf and praying for us. 
This makes it clear that prayer is more than a means 
of grace for the sinful and erring. It is the eternal 
ordinance of heaven and of earth. We shall never cease 
to pray. 

The second thing which is absent in the prayers 

385 
13 



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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

of Jesus is the petition for such things as the body 
needs. He refused to turn the stones into bread, 
though He knew that the power was not wanting in 
Him. Nor did He ever pray for bread. He has 
taught us to pray for our daily bread — a very 
modest petition. But even that modest petition He 
never once made His own. He lived as did the birds 
of the air, who sow not, neither reap, nor gather into 
barns. All His prayers move in the higher realm of 
thanksgiving, adoration, equipment for spiritual ser- 
vice, communion and intercession. The explana- 
tion of this cannot be found in His knowledge that 
v/hatever w^as needed was at His command; for when 
fierce hunger pressed Him in the desert He refused to 
work a miracle. He would take only what the Father 
was pleased to give Him, and in the Father's way. 
The only explanation is that faith in Him was so abso- 
lute and perfect, and His absorption in His mission 
so complete, that the only meat and drink about which 
He concerned Himself was the doing of His Father's 
will. We follow Him afar off, but we, too, may take 
comfort in the assurance that God knows what we 
need, and that if we seek first His kingdom and His 
righteousness, all these things shall be added unto us. 
And if we have food and raiment let us be gratefully 
content. 

I presume it will alw^ays impress us strangely that 
Jesus prayed; for prayer is a recognition and confes- 
sion of dependence. Jesus Christ was and remains 
very God. And while it is true that the eternal life of 
God is a plural life, so that in the indivisible essence 
there is an eternal intercommunion of Father, Son 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

and Holy Ghost, this communion cannot properly be 
regarded as prayer. God cannot pray to God. Did 
Christ, then, pray simply as man, the consciousness of 
Godhood being for the time in eclipse ? That is a vio- 
lent supposition, which destroys the unity of His per- 
sonal consciousness. We can only say, and we must 
say, that He was the Incarnate Son of God. God in 
the form of man, and that in consenting to come into 
the flesh He voluntarily assumed a place of inde- 
pendence upon the absolute Godhead, and so came 
under the law of prayer. He not only could pray ; He 
must pray; because while He retained His conscious 
Godhood, he retained it in form of our common hu- 
man nature, which is dependent. That conscious de- 
pendence He shared, and that made prayer His vital 
breath and native air, as it is ours. In the same way 
must we construe the heavenly intercession. Jesus 
Christ now prays for us, not as God, nor as glorified 
man, but as the Incarnate Son of God, God in the 
form of exalted and glorified man. As such He still 
shares in our dependence, and that brings Him, even 
in heaven, under the law of prayer. So that the inter- 
cession is not figurative and rhetorical, but real and 
effective. 

Prayer strikes its roots deep in the moral economy 
of God. It is not the duty and the privilege of some ; 
it is the duty and the privilege of all. It is not the nec- 
essity of the few ; it is the necessity of all. The attitude 
of prayer is the normal attitude of a dependent and 
conscious creation, including its visible and anointed 
King, who in His conscious dependence is also con- 
scious of His eternal Godhead. Nor can prayer ever 

3«7 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

cease. It must be the eternal speech of the con- 
sciously dependent creature to the Creator and 
Father, to which He is eternally responsive. There 
will come a time when confession for sin \\\\\ 
drop out of our speech. But thanksgiving, adoration, 
equipment for spiritual service, communion and inter- 
cession, will continue to be the normal speech of the 
eternal heavens. And when we pray our Father will 
answer. 

If now, we have not exaggerated the importance 
and the dignity of prayer as the eternal form of com- 
munion between the conscious created spirit and its 
Creator and Father, ever widening in its scope, ever 
deepening in its tenderness and sweet intimacy, we 
cannot address ourselves too early and earnestly to 
the mastery of the celestial speech. In this, as in 
everything else, there must be a beginning, and we 
should begin right. We walk before we run, and we 
creep before we walk. We spell before we read, and 
we must learn our alphabet before we spell. The al- 
phabet opens the door into the wide fields of literature, 
science and art. There is an alphabet of prayer, and 
its mastery is of prime importance. Prayer is not any 
and every kind of address to God. It has its dis- 
tinctive features, and these are sketched with great 
clearness in the utterances of our Lord. These are not 
grouped in formal order, but they are found imbedded 
and ingrained in the discourses of Jesus. Their full 
treatment would require a volume, and the merest 
hints must here suffice. 

Jesus always assumes that prayer is the natural 
speech of the soul. It is more than a duty, more than 

388 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

a privilege; it is a fundamental and universal neces- 
sity. Without it the soul is dumb. Man seeks God 
and God seeks man ; therein lies the eternal necessity 
of prayer. Must not my lips speak to their Maker? 
Must not my ear listen to Him who formed it? And 
He that made the ear, shall not He hear? He who 
made my lips, shall He not speak? Dr. McCosh 
summed it all up in two short sentences as sweet as 
they are simple, when, speaking of prayer, he said: 
"I pray, God hears; God speaks, I listen.'' That tells 
the whole story. 

Natural speech is always simple and direct. Hence 
Jesus warns us against needless repetitions, against 
much speaking, against pomposity of manner and lan- 
guage. That is always offensive, and defeats its end, 
even between man and man. Sincere speech is always 
simple. It studies short, plain sentences. It does not 
deal in superlatives. It discards artifice and ornament. 
And that is the only speech to which God gives an at- 
tentive ear. Any other is hypocrisy, and hypocrisy 
God hates. In the second place, natural speech is 
earnest as well as sincere. All sincerity vibrates with 
earnestness. For sincerity, as Whately tells us, not 
only means ''reality of conviction," which may be false, 
but ^'unbiased conviction,'' an impartial conviction, un- 
influenced by wishes or passions. Such a conviction 
has grip. The whole soul enters into it. And such 
earnestness, in the third place, inspires persistence. 
It is not easily discouraged. It presses its suit. It will 
not be denied. Hence our Lord's parable of the Un- 
just Judge, who yielded to the importunity of the 
widow. She knew that her cause was just, and she 

3^9 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

was determined to have justice. Hence, too, the pres- 
ent tense in those sayings of Jesus : ''Ask and it shall 
be given you ; for every one that asketh receiveth." 
The asking is continuous, repeated until the request is 
granted. Prayer is natural, earnest, frequent, untir- 
ing speech. 

When we turn our attention to the suppliant him- 
self, certain things are emphasized as indispensable 
to prayer. He who prays is absolutely dependent upon 
Him to whom he prays. That should make him mod- 
est in his petitions, and habitually grateful. He who 
prays is ignorant, does not know what is best for him ; 
and that should make him humble and submissive, ex- 
alting God's will above his own, and doing this gladly. 
He who prays is a sinner, and that should make him 
penitent. Yet he who prays is also by the grace of 
adoption in Jesus Christ a child of God and an heir of 
glory, and that should make him bold, asking great 
things, and expecting them. Prayer is grateful, mod- 
est, humble, penitent, bold speech. In prayer, too, we 
are reminded that we occupy a common place with our 
fellow men. The plural number must not drop out of 
our speech. If we are selfish, God is not. He is no re- 
specter of persons. He does not share our jealousies 
and hatreds, and they are offensive to Him. He will 
not forgive us, if we do not from the heart forgive 
our enemies. Therefore we must pray for them, too, 
and so intercession for all men must enter into our 
speech with God. Prayer summons us to an exalted 
state of mind. It involves gratitude, sincerity, earnest- 
ness, persistence, humility, submission, penitence, bold- 
ness, comprehensive charity. 

390 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

The character of Him to whom we must pray must 
also be taken into account. It is His favor we seek, 
not the applause of men. Hence we must pray, not to 
be seen or heard of others, standing apart and 
attracting attention, but speaking to our God in 
secret. He is infinitely exalted, and therefore our 
speech should be profoundly reverent. There should 
be frankness without flippancy and offensive famil- 
iarity. Our place is at the foot of God's throne. He 
is infinite in wisdom, power, goodness and grace. 
That commands and justifies the most absolute confi- 
dence in Him and surrender to His sovereign will. 
Summing it all up, prayer involves gratitude, sin- 
cerity, earnestness, persistence, humility, submission, 
penitence, boldness, comprehensive charity, secrecy, 
faith. 

There is, too, a natural and necessary order in 
the things for which we pray. Nothing is excluded. 
We may and we ought to carry everything to God in 
prayer. All our cares we may and we ought to cast 
upon Him. But all things are not of equal importance. 
The life is more than meat and the body than raiment. 
Bread we need, but we do not live by bread alone. 
The immortal soul should command our chief attention. 
We should be infinitely more anxious to be saved from 
sin than from poverty, sickness, suffering and death. 
Righteousness is our supreme need and the supreme 
need of the world. Therefore our Lord summons us to 
pray that the Kingdom of God may come, and that His 
will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. For the 
answer to that prayer includes every other blessing. 

It is a common complaint that many earnest pray- 

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THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

ers are unanswered. It is pertinent to ask whether 
the natural and necessary conditions have entered into 
such prayers. He who scatters his seed upon the 
ocean has no right to complain that he does not reap a 
harvest. There is such a thing as a law of prayer. 
The conditions must be complied with ; and these con- 
ditions, as we have seen, are not arbitrary, but grow 
out of the necessities of the case. In true prayer, man 
must understand himself, and man must understand 
his God. He must ask for what is really needed, with 
comprehensive charity for all men, and with absolute 
confidence in God. Prayer does not lend itself to a 
selfish and self-seeking soul. It is the highest speech 
of which the soul is capable. In it the heart unburdens 
itself. In it we rush for shelter under the divine 
wings. In it the perfect will of God broods over our 
own, quieting our restlessness and impatience, impart- 
ing to us the peace in which He dwells. If we pray 
thus, the answer will come before our lips have ended 
their appeal. God hears ; God speaks ; let us listen ! 



What Jesus Had to Say About Religion. 

[March 19, 1899.] 

The word religion has been variously defined. 
Some have made it a form of philosophy, a purely 
intellectual way of looking at things and estimating 
their value. Others have reduced it to the sense of ab- 
solute dependence, having its sole and proper sphere 
in the feelings. A third class identifies it with mo- 
rality or moral action, and limits it to right conduct. 

392 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

Every one of these definitions must be rejected, for 
the simple reason that religion is neither exclusively 
intellectual nor exclusively emotional nor exclusively 
practical. It claims and exercises sovereignty over the 
whole man. It shapes the convictions, directs the 
emotions and controls the will. Our definition, there- 
fore, must state with clearness what it is in religion 
which assumes control in the sphere of thought, feel- 
ing and action. Here, again, the etymology of the 
word does not help us. Some trace it to a word which 
means "to bind back,'' but leaving us in doubt as to 
what it is to which we are bound. Others trace it to 
a word which means ''to read again, to ponder,'' and so 
make it equivalent to serious reflection. There is com- 
mon agreement that among the Romans and the 
Greeks the word religion meant ''religious worship or 
usage," the faithful observance of certain rites and 
ceremonies in which the gods were honored. In the 
New Testament the word is found only three times, 
once in Acts and twice in the Epistle of James. So 
far as we know Jesus never used it. Paul, in his de- 
fense before Agrippa, declared that he had lived be- 
fore his conversion as a Pharisee, after the straitest 
sect of his religion, using the word in its ordinary 
sense of religious worship or usage, the usage which 
the ceremonial law prescribed. James contrasts a vain 
religion with a pure and undefiled. He who does not 
bridle his tongue may seem to be religious, but is not. 
True religion does more. It keeps a man unspotted 
from the workl. It urges to and results in moral 
purity. And it includes visiting the fatherless and 
widows in their affliction, compassionate treatment of 

393 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

the helpless and the sorrowing. But the crowning state- 
ment of Tames is that this is religion before God and 
the Father; that is, in the judgment of Him who as 
God is holy and supreme, and as Father loves all who 
belong to His household. Because He is God we must 
keep ourselves unspotted from the world. And be- 
cause He is Father we must visit the fatherless and 
widows in their affliction. True religion, therefore, 
according to James, is not determined by usage, but 
by what God is, by His supreme and holy Fatherhood. 
It is a life which in all its spheres is shaped by pro- 
found and habitual reverence for what God is and de- 
mands. 

As thus interpreted, while Jesus never seems to 
have used the word religion, and perhaps intention- 
ally avoided it because in common usage a false con- 
ception was associated with it. He had much to say 
about it. Religion, as reverence, profound, absorb- 
ing, habitual, for what God is and requires, is 
the equivalent of Faith : and upon Faith Jesus laid 
the imperial emphasis. Without Faith it is impossi- 
ble to please God. Sacrifices, alms, prayers are 
worthless and offensive without it. It is the publican 
who stands afar off. confesses his tmworthiness and 
appeals to the mercy of God. who goes to His house 
pardoned and adopted. It is the sinner who repents, 
over whom there is joy in heaven and in the heart of 
God. No temple is needed to give dignity to worship. 
The Father seeks only such as worship Him in spirit 
and in truth. 

There are three strands in this mystic cord of re- 
ligion binding the soul to God, and God alone. It is 

394 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

clear, in the first place, that Jesus regarded religion as 
a personal relation. It is not an affair of the com- 
munity or of the church. That was the pagan idea ; 
religion consisted in the observance of certain usages 
prescribed by the priesthood. Personal reverence had 
nothing to do with it. The Pharisees identified re- 
ligion with obedience to the traditions of the elders. 
Jesus denounced them as whited sepulchers, full of 
hypocrisy, shutting and bolting the doors into the 
Kingdom of Heaven, tithing mint, anise and cummin, 
but making void the commandment of God. The ve- 
hement protest of Jesus was not needed. Paul re- 
newed the battle in every community where he 
preached the gospel, and his most venomous antagon- 
ists were professedly Christian disciples. The pagan 
idea crowded the personal element in religion to the 
wall. A cold, formal ceremonialism swept through 
the Greek, the Roman and the African Church. Re- 
ligion became obedience to regulations, enacted and 
enforced by the priesthood. Luther in Germany, Cal- 
vin and Zwingle in Switzerland, Wesley in England, 
reaffirmed the doctrine of Paul and of Jesus. Justifi- 
cation by faith became the watchword of the new era, 
a theological phrase for religion as exclusively personal 
reverence for God, confidence in Him, obedience to 
Him. And even now in Protestant lands and churches 
the pagan idea of religion finds advocates. The great 
school of Ritzschl makes the Christian community the 
organ of saving grace. It denies personal communion 
with God. It makes the individual dependent upon 
the church. Incorporation into it is adoption. 
Against such a debasement of the personal element in 

395 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

religion we must continue to protest. Its root is per- 
sonal devotion to God. That creates the church, that 
makes its sacraments means of grace, that gives to 
Christian customs and institutions their beauty and 
strength. They are all the fruits of faith ; and as such 
they minister to faith — that is, to personal reverence 
for God — confidence in Him and obedience to Him. 
No altar, no priesthood, no ancient and venerable rites, 
mediate betv^een our souls and God. We have access 
by faith into the grace v^herein we stand; and, there- 
fore, the place of secret prayer is the holiest sanc- 
tuary. 

It is equally clear that Jesus regarded religion as 
intensely spiritual, as working from within. It is the 
hidden leaven, it is the buried but living mustard seed, 
it is not outward reformation but inward regeneration. 
It is a birth from above, making all things new by the 
mastery which God secures in the fontal depths of our 
being. All spiritual acts are and must be personal 
acts. But all personal acts are not spiritual. They 
may be carnal. Only such personal acts are spiritual 
which find their origin, continuance, law and end in 
the domain of spiritual life. And spiritual life is uni- 
formly declared to be by our Lord and by Paul a de- 
rived and imparted life. The natural man, the soul 
closed against divine influences, is carnal; such a soul 
cannot understand the things of God, as the eye can- 
not see when the lids are closed upon it. The eye sees 
only when it receives the light. And the soul sees only 
when it receives and lives in the light which God is. 
The point in all this is that just as in prayer man 
speaks to a listening and answering God, so in true 

396 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

religion, what man renders to God, whether in wor- 
ship, or conduct, or service, is rendered to Him solely 
in view of what He is and has revealed Himself to be. 
Religion lives, moves and has its being in the super- 
natural and the eternal. It is walking with God. 
We are personal beings. But we are not self-centered, 
beings. God alone is self-centered. In Him alone are 
the sources of wisdom, power, blessedness and glory. 
We bear His likeness. We are capable of fellowshif 
with Him. But in fellowship there is mutual giving 
and receiving. There must be two to constitute a fel- 
lowship, and in fellowship both must be active. No 
account of religion, therefore, can be correct which 
does not recognize the divine element in it, and give 
to that the original and supreme place. The spirit in 
man is that which is deepest or highest in him; it 
makes no difference which superlative is used. It is 
that which is central in him, the point at which God 
enters into fellowship with him; and only as God is 
freely and gladly received at this center of our being 
does true religion come to its birth. Hence Jesus sums 
up our whole duty in two words : "Follow Me.'' 

I cannot follow Christ unless I have absolute con- 
fidence in Him. And I cannot follow Him unless I 
keep Him constantly in sight. Religion is a personal 
following; it is a spiritual following, and it is also 
a rational following. Jesus tells me that I must 
worship God in spirit and in truth. The rational 
element cannot be eliminated from true religion. It 
is not mysticism ; it is not ecstasy ; it is not vague 
sentiment. Eternal life roots itself in the knowledge 
of God which Jesus Christ imparts. Our con- 

397 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

victions have a good deal to do with our reUgion. 
Our reverence for God w^ill depend upon v^hat v^e be- 
lieve Him to be. Our penitence will depend upon 
what we regard sin to be. And so through the whole 
range of what we call religion; it will be shaped and 
colored by our theology. For as a man thinketh in his 
heart, so is he. I am not speaking of a man's fancies 
or speculations. I am speaking of his convictions. If 
he has no theological convictions he can have no re- 
ligion. And his religion will derive its vigor from his 
theological convictions. For theology is simply the 
doctrine of God, and in a true knowledge of God re- 
ligion grounds itself. There may be call for a simpler 
theology, for a theology stripped of scholastic refine- 
ments. But the simplest theology will be massive. 
To affirm the existence of God as eternal, omniscient, 
omnipotent, omnipresent, merciful and holy ; to recog- 
nize the majesty and sacredness of His law ; to confess 
the mystery of the incarnation, and that He who be- 
came incarnate redeemed us through sacrifice and suf- 
fering; to believe that He who died rose again, 
ascended on high and intercedes for us ; to accept His 
authority as binding, and plan for the world's conver- 
sion to His Gospel ; to affirm duty and immortality — 
these elementary convictions constitute a very large 
outline of knowledge, and he who has a firm grasp 
upon them is a good deal of a theologian. Nor can 
such convictions be regarded as speculative and un- 
fruitful in practical results. They are full of life and 
power, urging to high endeavor, provoking patience, 
courage and hopefulness. They who believe in such a 
God, and wait upon Him, renew their strength as the 

398 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

eagles. They run, and are not weary ; they walk, and 
do not faint. The floods do not overwhelm them ; 
furnaces of fire do not harm them. They glory in 
tribulation and they triumph in death. Their religion 
is their constant joy, because it is rooted in truth. 
They know whom they have believed. They have 
built their house upon the rock, and it cannot fall. 
They know upon whose palms their names have been 
graven, and from the gentle clasp of those hands none 
can tear them. It is all condensed in the opening 
clauses of the Apostles' Creed ; a massive, daring, 
fruitful and inspiring theology: *T believe in God the 
Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth ; and in 
Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord." That doctrine 
of God was all the early Christian Church meant by 
theology. We have made the word to cover many 
things that have no right to be sheltered under it, until 
with many it has become a synonym for metaphysical 
hairsplittings and unprofitable discussions, but theol- 
ogy is properly the doctrine of God, and only that ; 
the summing up in clear thought, the grasping in firm 
convictions, the maintenance in full assurance of what 
God has revealed Himself to be, in the works of His 
hands and in the Christ of His anointing. We shall 
have the religion of Jesus when we have the theology 
of Jesus. When we think of God as Jesus did we 
shall worship God as Jesus did, in spirit and in truth. 
And we shall obey the voice which was heard at the 
baptism and upon the Mount of Transfiguration, ''This 
is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased ; hear 
ye Him." 



399 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 
What Jesus Had to say About the Sabbath. 

[March 26, 1899.] 

The most superficial reading of the gospels makes 
it plain that from the very beginning of His public 
ministry Jesus encountered the bitter hostility of the 
religious teachers. Scribes and Pharisees sneered at 
Him, slandered Him, denounced Him, and finally 
compassed His death. The common people heard Him 
gladly, to be in their turn cursed as ignorant of the 
law. We look in vain for any theological divergence 
as an explanation of this bitter and implacable hos- 
tility. Both parties accepted the divine authority of 
the Old Testament as a revelation of saving truth. 
But between Jesus and His opponents there was a 
radical difference as to the real nature of piety. He 
insisted that it was personal and spiritual, manifesting 
itself in supreme love for God and fraternal love for 
all men. Religion with Him meant practical recogni- 
tion of the Fatherhood of God, and the brotherhood of 
man. Ceremonial observances and regulations were 
treated as secondary matters. In this contention, Jesus 
was not entirely without sympathizers and supporters, 
even among the Scribes and Pharisees. But for the 
greater part the religious teachers made religion to 
consist in the observance of prescribed rites. It 
is impossible to exaggerate the extreme to which this 
tendency has been carried, and how burdensome its 
exactions had become. The world has never known 
a religious formalism so rigid and absolute as that of 
the Pharisees. Of its regulations, Edersheim says : 
''They provided for every possible and impossible case, 

400 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

entered into every detail of private, family and 
public life, and with iron logic, unbending rigor and 
most minute analysis, pursued and dominated man, 
turn whither he might, laying on him a yoke which 
was truly unbearable/' These ''traditions of the elders" 
were invested with a higher authority than the Scrip- 
tures, and to disregard them was declared to be ''worse 
than idolatry, uncleanness, or the shedding of blood." 
They enjoined the most minute, painful, punctilious 
observance of every external legal ordinance. The} 
left the inner man untouched. What he was to believe 
and feel was of no great consequence. He might hold 
and champion any views, as long as he adhered in prac- 
tice to the traditional ordinances. Here, as Edersheim 
says, "we mark the fundamental difference between the 
teaching of Jesus and Rabbinism. The difference was 
one of fundamental principle, and not merely of devel- 
opment, form or detail. One developed the law in its 
outward direction, as ordinances and commandments ; 
the other in its inward application, as life and liberty. 
Rabbinism occupied one pole. The teaching of Jesus oc- 
cupied the other pole. Thus as between the two, there is 
a total divergence of fundamental principle, so that 
comparison between them is not possible. There is ab- 
solute contrariety." It is needless to prove that in this 
fierce conflict with the advocates of traditional re- 
ligion, Jesus recovered the true religion of the Old 
Testament. Moses and the prophets were His allies. 
The Scril)cs had made void tlie law l)y their traditions. 
"Under a hr^d of outward ordinances and observ- 
ances its spirit had been crushed. The religion as well 
as the hope of the Old Testament had become exter- 

401 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

nalizcd." Jesus recovered them both, by laying the ax 
at the root of the tree, and making piety a matter of 
the heart, intensely personal and spiritual, bearing 
fruit in love, love to God and love to man. One sen- 
tence embodies the sovereign principle, to which he 
subjected every dispute : "^'It is the spirit that quicken- 
eth, the flesh profiteth nothing." Hence, to eat with 
unwashed hands was no sin. The purification pre- 
scribed by the elders possessed no binding authority. 
There was no religion in their observance. The things 
by which men are defiled come out of their hearts. To 
us this is commonplace. It belongs to the alphabet of 
common sense. But when Jesus announced it the doc- 
trine was more revolutionary than Luther's mainten- 
ance that men are justified by faith and by faith only. 
In both cases the priestly party clearly perceived that 
their authority was seriously and permanently menaced. 
There could be no compromise upon such an issue ; 
unconditional surrender, by the one or the other, was 
the only way out. 

The general controversy, at a very early day, as- 
sumed a special form. It reached its acute stage in the 
dispute as to how the Sabbath should be kept, and by 
what general principle its observance should be regu- 
lated. How the dispute first began it is impossible 
definitely to determine. We do know that in the sec- 
ond year of the public ministry of Jesus it broke out 
in Galilee and in Judea. In Galilee Capernaum was 
the storm center. Passing through its adjoining corn- 
field, in the time of harvest, on a Sabbath, the disciples. 
being hungry, plucked the ears ; and, rubbing them be- 
tween their hands, they ate the winnowed grain. This 

402 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

made them guilty of a double sin ; the sin of reaping 
and the sin of threshing on the Sabbath. On a subse- 
quent Sabbath, and in the synagogue, Jesus healed a 
man with a withered hand, who was present. That 
filled the Pharisees with fierce anger and united them 
in the determination to get rid of Him. In Judea Je- 
rusalem was the storm center. Jesus performed a 
notable miracle upon a poor cripple, whose infirmity 
was of thirty-eight years' standing, and who seems to 
have been as friendless as he was helpless. Jesus bade 
him rise, take up his bed and walk. It was the Sab- 
bath, and the man's obedience created a public scandal, 
against which the Jews protested. The controversy 
which followed became so heated that Jesus withdrew 
Himself from Jerusalem for a time ; and when He did 
return it was resumed with such angry bitterness on 
the part of the Jews that they took up stones to cast 
at Him. He slipped away from them, only soon after 
to restore sight to a man who had been blind from birth, 
performing that miracle of mercy also on the Sabbath, a 
fact to which the Pharisees confidently appealed as 
proving that Jesus was a deceiver and blasphemer. We 
learn from the record, therefore, that the immediate 
occasion of the deadly hostility of the Pharisee against 
Jesus was His attitude on the question of Sabbath ob- 
servance. 

Edersheim, in his ''Life and Times of Jesus," gives a 
long chapter on the ordinances and law of the Sabbath 
as laid down in the Misnah and in tlie Jerusalem Tal- 
mud. It is mournful reading. Its puerilities exceed 
belief. In no less than twenty-four chapters matters are 
seriously discussed which one would scarcely imagine a 

403 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

sane intellect would seriously entertain. Through 64^ 
folio columns in the Jerusalem and 156 double pages of 
folio in the Babylon Talmud does the enumeration and 
discussion of possible cases drag on. And yet in all 
these wearisome details there is not a single trace of 
anything spiritual, not a word even to suggest higher 
thoughts of God's holy day and its observance. The 
trivialities are not worth reproducing. Jesus did not 
deign to take any notice of them. He broke them all 
down by defending His disciples for what they had 
done and by working miracles forbidden by the tra- 
ditional regulations. He claimed that the Sabbath was 
not violated by eating when one was hungry, thus 
sweeping away at one stroke all the dietary regulations 
of the rabbis. He declared that it was lawful to do 
good on the Sabbath day and to save life. He gath- 
ered up the whole matter in two pithy sentences : ''The 
Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath," 
and ''The Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath." 
The argument is very simple and very radical. The 
weekly day of rest and worship is demanded by the 
highest good of man, and inasmuch as Jesus is the 
Son of Man the best interpreter of what man is and 
what man needs, His use of the Sabbath is that which 
corresponds to the divine intention. 

It is plain, from this statement of the case, that 
Jesus recognized the binding authority of the fourth 
commandment. He did not work upon the Sabbath. 
Luke tells us that when Jesus visited Nazareth for 
the first time after His baptism He went into the syna- 
gogue on the Sabbath day, "as His custom was." That 
had been His habit and He adhered to it. The Sab- 

404 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

bath always found Him in the synagogue. He was a 
regular church-goer, empty as the services were. He 
did not draw men away from them, nor did He ab- 
sent Himself. There is no record of His ever having 
offered any sacrifices in the temple, nor of His en- 
couraging others to do so ; but the synagogue He fre- 
quented with jcareful regula^rity. We can imagine 
how sorely He must have been tried by many a ser- 
vice, especially during those years in Nazareth when 
He was debarred from speaking. But the divine au- 
thority of the Sabbath was all the time freely recog- 
nized and heartily respected, not only as a day of rest, 
but as a day of worship. He remembered it, to keep 
it holy. 

It is equally clear that He regardeth the self-con- 
stituted guardians of the Sabbath as its greatest foes. 
They made it an intolerable burden to the people. 
They made it a gloomy prison, not the radiant, roomy 
palace of the King; just as they had converted the 
house of prayer into a den of thieves. The abuses 
were not attacked in detail. They grew out of a com- 
mon root and that root Jesus tore up with ruthless yet 
loving hands. He made the Sabbath a day of life and 
liberty. It was, in His view, God's day with man and 
man's day with God, the day of the Father with His 
children, when all ceremonial regulations were an im- 
pertinence. It was made for man, not man for it. 
As made for man its observance is a high and sacred 
duty, its maintenance a serious and solemn obliga- 
tion. To part with it, to neglect it, to abridge or deny 
its use to others, is to suffer in one's inheritance. It 
is the badge of man's freedom, of his divine sonship. 

405 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

But he was not made for it, and therefore no hard 
and fast regulations can be laid down for its observ- 
ance. Jesus leveled the whole elaborate Rabbinical 
structure and he reared nothing in its place. He left 
every man free to determine for himself the method 
of Sabbath observance. 

This was certainly audacious. It might seem as if 
so radical a method could result only in the abandon- 
ment of the old Sabbath observance, as if the day must 
go down with the traditional ceremonial observance. 
And that is w^hat actually happened. Christianity 
could not appropriate the Jewish Sabbath, not even 
the day of the week. The new^ wine could not be kept 
in the old bottles. We cannot trace the change which 
substituted the first day of the week for the seventh. 
It was natural that the day on which Jesus rose from 
the dead should become a memorial day. But it was 
inevitable that a day out of which all life and joy had 
been crushed by puerile and offensive legislation 
should surrender its scepter of authority to another 
day in which the freedom of Christ should come to the 
throne. And in this matter, too, the liberty which 
Jesus advocated comes to its rights. For, so long as 
one day in seven is kept as a day of rest and worship, 
the divine authority of the Sabbath is recognized and 
honored. 

And, finally, the words of Jesus, in which, as the 
Son of Man, he claims lordship also of the Sabbath, 
provide us with the law of its observance. Our lib- 
erty is not license. The day of rest is not ours to use 
as we please. Christ alone is Lord of the Sabbath. 
It is, therefore, our day of rest in His service. We 

406 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

may use it, we ought to use it, as He used it. We, 
too, are summoned to consecrate its hours to the wor- 
ship of God and to the doing of good, as did He. It 
is a simple rule, which will not and cannot secure rigid 
uniformity in the observance. No one can formulate 
the law for another. It may even be that what is 
obligatory on me may be forbidden to you. In such 
matters we cannot judge each other. But to keep the 
day holy, to subordinate self to God and to our fellow 
men, is the special duty of all on this day, as it is the 
supreme law of all Hfe. And so, some time, the pres- 
ent distinctions of days shall vanish in the eternal Sab- 
bath of the heavens, when all worship will be work, 
and all work will be worship. 



What Jesus Had to Say About Heaven. 

[April 9, 1899.] 
Nothing is more certain than that it is appointed 
unto all men once to die. But it is also true that not 
one of us is ever quite ready to die. Upon the very 
brink of the grave we exhaust all available resources 
to prolong our own life or the life of those whom we 
love. Last month, upon two successive days, I offi- 
ciated at the funeral services of two persons, both of 
whom had rounded out a full ninety years ; and in 
both cases the long deferred bereavement provoked 
keen regret. There was no fear of death ; but neither 
was there any eagerness, nor any welcome, for its ad- 
vent. Not one of us wants to die. We may some- 
times say so, in moments of deep dcspomlcucy , but the 
reaction is sure to come. We liold on as long as we 

407 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

can. We do not voluntarily relax our grip upon life. 
We say of such as take their own life that they must 
have been of unbalanced mind, thereby voicing our 
conviction that it is unnatural for man to make an end 
of his stay on earth. Nor is this the infirmity of weak 
men and women. Paul, broken by his many labors, 
bent by his many burdens, suffering the horrors of 
Roman imprisonment, was in a strait betwixt two, 
whether to depart and so to be with Christ, or to re- 
main on earth ; and he could not bring himself to in- 
dicate his preference. Jesus Christ came to give His 
life a ransom for many. Death w^as His voluntary, 
deliberate election. And yet, when He entered its 
dark shadow. He prayed once and again that the cup 
might pass from Him. This drawing back from death 
is not the soul's infirmity. It is its earnest and im- 
passioned protest. It is its emphatic affirmation that 
it was made to live — and to live forever. 

The Biblical record of man's creation is in com- 
pletest harmony with this constitutional and universal 
conviction. The record tells us that man was made 
of the dust of the ground. He is part of nature, is 
under all the laws of nature, including the law of 
death. Adam's body was mortal like our own. But 
the record also adds that in the Garden of Eden there 
was a tree of life, the eating of whose fruit was a pre- 
ventative of death. This is pictorial, it is true, and is not 
to be interpreted literally. It is poetry ; not prose. 
But stripped of its pictorial or poetic form, the state- 
ment declares that while man was made of the dust of 
the ground, a part of nature, and under all the laws of 
nature, including death, nature itself contained some 

408 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

provision by which death could be prevented, even as 
now, by skillful medical treatment and by vigilant 
nursing, the sick are often snatched from the jaws of 
death, and their lives prolonged for many years. No 
man is competent to say that nature does not contain 
such a provision; and the Biblical statement that it 
did contain such a provision from the very first meets 
the conviction in every one of us that we ought not to 
die, that death is an evil for such a being as man. 
What it is, and whence it is, we do not know. The 
record more than hints that its discovery is beyond 
our successful search. The gates have closed upon the 
tree of life, and the revolving sword of flame guards 
the entrance. But Genesis and the soul of man agree 
perfectly in this, that death is a disturbing element in 
the life of an immortal spirit. 

There was a time when materialism was the reign- 
ing philosophy. The soul was declared to be the se- 
cretion of the brain, as bile is of the liver, and that a 
man is only what he eats. Of course death was the 
end of his career. Then came the period of agnos- 
ticism, when men declined to formulate their belief, 
maintaining that the evidence was confusing and con- 
tradictory. We may be immortal, but we do not 
know; and prudence dictates that we live as if we 
were immortal. But the soul craves certainty, not 
mere possibility. And so, for a decade and more, we 
have had a succession of books grappling with the ar- 
gument that the personal immortality of the human 
soul is demanded by the logic of evolution ; that na- 
ture itself is an empire of anarchy from center to rim, 
unless self-conscious mind be immortal. There is 

409 



THE CHRfST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

much in the argument that is fascinating. But, after 
all, the logic is circular. It ends where it begins. It 
finds what it seeks. It assumes what it proves. The 
soul of man makes the stars echo its own thought. 
And that is as it should be. For the soul of man has 
as much right to be heard on its own behalf as have 
the shining stars and the sounding seas. He is, and 
must be, his own interpreter. You search in vain for 
the sense of moral obligation, except in your own 
breast ; but it is there, and yoti impose its authority 
upon all the spaces and all the ages. You search in 
vain for what you call sin, except in your own life ; 
but it is there, and you cannot call it innocent or good. 
You search in vain for any evidence of personal im- 
mortality, except in your own soul ; but it is there ; the 
endless outlook, which remains even when its au- 
thority is silenced. It is not merely that we should 
prefer to live forever. We can make no other rational 
choice. AVe are shut up to that, without alternative. 
How can stars, and seas, and mountains, and birds, 
give me any information upon such a matter, when the 
idea of personal immortality has never laid its mighty 
and mystic spell upon them ? Xo ; I will commune 
wdth my own soul. I need no elaborate logic to prove 
that I am immortal. I know it by what I am, so that 
my present conscious existence becomes irrational and 
absurd if the grave is to swallow me up. I cannot 
think, I cannot live, in any other way than as one 
whom the chains of death cannot bind. It is an im- 
mediate vision, an intuitive conviction, not a logical 
conclusion. I do not reach it by argument, but by self- 
knowledge. 

410 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

But when I come to ask what the endless Hfe after 
death will be, I am in a region where little light comes 
to me. I have but this, as a general conviction, that 
the law of the future for the conscious soul must be 
the continuation of the law of the present. Personal 
immortality implies immutability of law. I shall reap 
only what I sow. Death cannot produce a radical 
change in the condition of a soul upon which death 
cannot lay its hands. The soul's life unfolds under its 
own law. What it was on earth, what it was at death, 
it remains when soul and body are parted. The ways 
part, not at death, but where the will chooses the right, 
or elects the wrong. Let us not forget that, that our 
eternal destiny trembles in the scales whenever the right 
confronts us and compels us to choose. Now is the 
day of salvation ! 

All this is involved in what Jesus had to say about 
the life to come. He assumes that there is no change 
in the soul, that it retains its present powers and ac- 
tivities, and that it continues under the normal law of 
the present earthly life. Death is the end of one 
period and the beginning of another, leaving the soul 
itself untouched in its essential life. Death has no 
sacramental saving power. To shed the body is not to 
get rid of sin. The clearest and fullest utterance of 
our Lord on this matter is contained in the parable of 
the rich man and Lazarus. Both retain their personal 
and conscious identity. In both memory is active, 
though only one speaks. They remember their life 
on earth. They recognize each other. And the moral 
law under which they continue to exist differs in no 
essential feature from the one under which they lived 

4" 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

on earth. Each simply reaped the harvest of his own 
sowing. Assuming, as we must, the personal immor- 
tality of the human soul, we must assume that memory 
continues to discharge its mysterious ofifice, for good 
or for evil, that the feelings retain their place and 
power, that conscience exercises its judicial authority, 
that mutual recognition may and must be taken for 
granted, and that in eternity, as in time, holiness is the 
law of blessedness. 

To these things the soul of man bears witness. 
Beyond that, all human oracles are dumb or speak 
with no recognized authority. In ancient and in mod- 
ern times, men have given full wing to their fancy. 
They have given elaborate descriptions of the Elysian 
fields, of the banquets and amusements of the gods, of 
Hades and the gloomier Tartarus, closed by massive 
iron gates. Egyptian theology fairly reveled in this 
species of speculation, for in Egypt, the tomb, more 
than the temple, was the center of reHgious worship; 
and the Book of the Dead, describing the soul's jour- 
ney and experience after death, was the great theo- 
logical manual. The Old Testament preserves a most 
remarkable and impressive silence, though the con- 
viction of an uninterrupted life pulses in every psalm, 
breathes in every prayer, and speaks in every pro- 
phetic utterance. Christian literature has made its dar- 
ing excursions into this region. Dante and Milton, 
and lesser lights, have dragged the unseen world into 
view. But when you have sifted it all, there is abso- 
lutely nothing left upon which one can fix with cer- 
tainty. Genius knows no more than does the new 
born babe, and no traveler has ever returned to tell us 

412 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

what he saw. I have long since ceased to read books 
on the future life, though there are enough of them 
to make up a great library, simply because no one 
knows anything about it, and upon so august and sol- 
emn a theme I will listen only to the voice of an au- 
thoritative teacher. 

Jesus Christ is such a teacher. Of course, if He 
was only a man, even the best and greatest among 
men, His words carry no more authority than those 
of Dante and Milton. But if He was and is the 
Incarnate Son of God, God manifest in the flesh, who 
came from heaven and went back to heaven. Infalli- 
ble Master in the knowledge of the world to come, 
His words, however few, give us secure footing. 
Some things He clearly teaches. He teaches an eternal 
separation of the righteous and the wicked. Annihi- 
lation and universal salvation. He cannot be made to 
teach. He teaches a universal resurrection to judg- 
ment, administered by Himself, and in a few rapid 
strokes He sketches for us the heavenly life. 

He has not much to say about heaven; but what 
He does say is enough. I shall not enlarge upon it, 
because I am convinced that it is sweeter for every one 
of us to fill up the outlines of his sketch. The four- 
teenth chapter of John is that sketch, to which may be 
added that wonderful word to the penitent thief : "This 
day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise." Heaven is 
the Father's house of many mansions, which Christ is 
busy preparing for its occupants ; and as soon as the 
designated chamber is ready, He comes Himself for 
the inmate and guest. We arc not to l)c k^ft naked ; 
we are to be clothed upon with our house wliich is 

413 



THE CHRIST OF NINETEEN CENTURIES 

from heaven. We are not to be left unsheltered; the 
Father's roof is to cover us. We are not to be left 
wandering in solitude ; we are to be with Him, and 
where He is, and we are to behold His glory. He 
w^ll know each one of us, and call us by name ; and we 
shall know Him. Of course we shall know each other, 
as He welcomes us each by name, and we shall renew^ 
the pure and holy friendships of our mortal life, as 
soldiers, returned from the wars, recount the experi- 
ences of the camp, the weary march and the field of 
battle. It cannot be otherwise. Heaven will be home ; 
more than that I do not care to know. 



nW/ The good man never dies. 
\ul — Montgomery, 




414 



JUN 15 1904 



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